by Tobias Hill
‘What happened?’ Anna says eventually, and Anneli looks back at her.
‘Happened? Nothing. He just changed. It started this summer. He began to avoid taking the insulin. He reduced the dosage. Stupid clever boy. John says he does it to test himself, and he’d know, they’re very alike. Two months ago he nearly died. Muriet was alone with him, she was terrified, she didn’t come to lessons for weeks. She’s his oldest friend, his best friend. And so now we have Helen. He’s not very happy about her, which I can understand, she’s an efficient old misery. And Nathan does his best to make her life even more miserable, by hiding from her.’
‘Which was why he was swimming outside in November. I didn’t know.’
‘Good.’ Anneli lifts her legs clear of the car, into the sun, and stretches. ‘Then apparently you don’t know everything about us, do you? I wouldn’t have told you, if you hadn’t – well. Will you keep it to yourself? If you can?’
‘Of course.’
‘Thank you. Now, I’m keeping you, aren’t I? You must want to see my husband. And I’m sure he’ll be waiting for you.’ She leans to crush out her cigarette, straightens, smiles down at Anna. The sun behind her.
They go in together. The doors are open. The hallway is cool, almost cold, the edge taken off the air but no more. Light falls through the high frontice, catching the old glass spheres of chandeliers (three hundred Louis XIV gilt chairs, Anna remembers. Four hundred Victorian lampposts) and a trough of water which cascades at one end from a fountain, at the other into a pool, so that the hall and the rooms beyond it are full of their echoes, the mutter of water following Anna as she follows Anneli inwards through courtyards and chambers, a colonnade overlooking the harbour, a wall made of aquaria, the fish arranging themselves into Mirós and Hirsts; a dining room where staff nod and step back from their business, as if the appearance of work were indecorous; a corridor of gabbehs piled thickly, and another of Persian carpets thin as parchment underfoot, the colours of gunpowder and pomegranates. A study at the end of it faced entirely with glass.
It is both like and unlike Anna’s dream. Only now does it occur to her that she has seen the room before; that what she imagined in sleep was less a creation than a reconstruction, its details combed from half-remembered images and interviews. There is the hearth, set into glass. There is the smell of wood smoke and leather. There is the music, though Anna knows it. It is Berg, the Lyric Suite, one of the pieces her father would listen to in the early evenings, waiting to work; improving himself. An algebra of sound always on the verge of breaking into melody. If cryptography could be played, she thinks, it would sound like this.
Nothing is visible beyond the glass walls but spare woodland, grass lush under cedars. Anna’s client sits in a worn armchair, facing the view, a pen and sheaf of paper propped in his hands. Beside him on a folding table rests a tray, a glass of champagne, two pills, untouched, a covered plate, chopsticks. His eyes are closed. He could be asleep or listening. Anna thinks he is listening.
‘John?’ Anneli says, her voice low and warm, a purr, as if she is reluctant to wake the man, would like to keep him there. But the figure of the Cryptographer remains motionless, and his wife lays a hand on Anna’s arm, lightly prohibitive, and goes closer, leaning beside him, repeating his name. Whispering it, the hardness Anna has seen and heard in her face and voice softening. John? John. Love.
He wakes abruptly, as if his dreams are about to catch up with him. Anna takes a step back into the doorway. The murmurs of the Laws barely reach her over the music’s restless patterns and symmetries.
‘Hello, you.’
‘Hello.’
‘Are you awake?’
‘Yes.’
‘Were you asleep?’
‘I was dreaming.’
‘Lucky you. Was I in it?’
There is the creak of leather. With one hand Law reaches out into nothing, and the music stops. ‘You wouldn’t want to be. Where’s Nathan?’
‘Playing.’ Anneli says. ‘Just playing. There’s someone to see you.’
‘Terence?’
‘The Revenue.’
A muttered curse, something below the threshold of Anna’s hearing, but heartfelt. She takes another step back into the dim mouth of the corridor, as if she has gone further than she intended, heard too much. I am the Revenue, she thinks, of course. The kind of people people have nightmares about. I mean that as a compliment, you understand. ‘How many?’
‘Just one.’
‘Man or woman?’
‘A woman.’
‘Anna Moore.’
‘I think so, yes. Some kind of Anna, anyway.’ A pause. ‘You didn’t tell me she was attractive.’
‘I didn’t think it mattered. Does it?’
‘No.’
‘Then I shouldn’t keep her waiting. Where did you leave her?’
‘I brought her here –’
‘Here?’ John Law repeats, caught off guard, and he looks past Anneli to where Anna waits and stands abruptly, his sternness all but lost in ruffled embarrassment. ‘Anna … come in. I’m sorry.’
‘So you should be.’ And she smiles, a bright, cosmetic expression, quicker than lipstick, professional. It makes her seem, if not at ease, then at least as if she knows what she is doing. She crosses to where John and Anneli stand, not quite together. ‘The Revenue can’t afford you sleeping on the job.’
He inclines his head, accepting the fault and the compliment. ‘I was slaving away for them rather late last night. But I’ve dragged you all the way out here, the least I can do is be awake when you arrive. How are you, Anna?’
‘I’m well –’ It’s good to see you again, she almost adds. The truth too close for comfort. Too eager to be known. ‘– and also late.’
‘Are you?’ He glances at the light outside and back, smiling, narrow-eyed, as she remembers him. ‘You know, I would have had you down as honest, but not as a natural latecomer. Perhaps you had some trouble finding your way?’
‘Perhaps I did,’ she says, and in the background Anneli laughs.
‘If it wasn’t for Muriet we might never have found her at all.’
‘Well.’ Law brushes himself down. Imaginary disarray. ‘You’re hardly the first. What can we do for you now you’ve found us? Something to eat.’
‘No.’
‘You’re sure? I can have something brought up, anything, within reason. You must be hungry.’
‘She isn’t,’ Anneli says, as if she knows John will agree it is the strangest thing. ‘I asked her.’ She has acquired the expression of a woman who can’t believe her luck, to have come across such entertainment.
‘Is that so?’
‘I’m fine, really, thank you,’ Anna lies to them both, not intending to assert herself with her certainty, more out of habit than anything intentional. The inspectors of the Revenue do not eat with their clients. They do not become obliged, not if they are honest in their work: not if they are good. And Anna is good. So she believes, of course she does.
‘In that case –’ John puts the tray on the floor, perches himself on the table, uncovers the plate. Under the cloth are sushi, a dozen of them, worked and bright and colourful as elements in circuitry. ‘Or do you mind? I wouldn’t want to distract you.’
‘You won’t.’
‘What a shame. Take a seat. Or is even that too much to hope for?’
She takes the seat. Puts down her case, unlocks it, lifts out the dormant weight of the computer. At the upper edge of her vision she is aware of Anneli leaning over her husband, kissing him, one hand going to his face, but by the time she straightens in her seat the other woman is gone without a word. There is only John Law, his eyes on her, waiting. Like a cat watching shadows.
‘It’s good to see you again. You told me you’d be back. I half hoped you would be, but I wasn’t sure whether to believe you.’
‘You should always believe the Revenue.’
‘Of course. But you’d got your money, after all. I
’d assumed it was the money you wanted. It didn’t seem like a strange assumption to make.’
‘I suppose not.’
‘I hope there wasn’t any problem with the payment?’
‘That would be rather unexpected,’ Anna says, and realises, without real surprise, that he is talking too much. Too quickly, the way less assured clients often will when they are nervous. And sometimes they are nervous of nothing but the facts of their ordinary lives, Anna knows. And sometimes not.
‘So it would be.’ He is holding the chopsticks poised over his plate. Now he begins to eat, delicately, hungrily, talking intermittently as he does so. ‘So it would. Then I wonder what it is, Anna, that you want from me now?’
‘I just need to ask you a few more things.’ She says it lightly, as she has been trained to do. ‘There are still questions that need to be answered.’
The Revenue’s phraseology. It comes to her automatically, a safety mechanism; questions without a questioner. Passive, as if there can be crime without criminals, mistakes without punishment. Law smiles faintly but says nothing, going back to his food, picking at it while Anna starts up the computer, waits for its clear light to settle.
‘Ready?’
‘Someone once told me that an inspector’s first question is never the important one. Is that true?’
She shrugs, waiting. ‘That depends how you answer it.’
‘I suppose it must. Well, ask away.’
‘How do you see your financial situation over the next five years?’
He laughs shortly. ‘My financial situation?’ Tasting the words, as if he could prise them from the air. ‘It would take a great deal to change it. I suppose I consider failure on a regular basis, but I wouldn’t deny that I’m successful. And success and failure are autocatalytic. They have a tendency to compound themselves.’
‘Mister Law, I need you to be clear –’
‘I know you do. The confessional need for transparency, I hadn’t forgotten.’
‘But I don’t understand what you –’
‘Yes, you do. Look,’ and abruptly – hungrily, Anna has time to think – he puts down the chopsticks, takes the napkin, quick-fingered; grasps her hand, lays the linen over her palm, like a magician about to perform some prestidigitation – the Mystery of the Severed Limb – and now he is reaching for his pen, is drawing on the starched cloth, her hand convenient as a writing desk.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m showing you. This was still a kid’s game when I was growing up. You too. A house to be drawn with one stroke of the pen –
– and no going back. Do you remember that, Anna?’
‘Yes.’ His hand around her wrist. The pen tracing her skin through the cloth, ticklish, almost painful. It is only the second time they have touched. She doesn’t pull away.
‘The first time it seems difficult. To begin with, you might choose the wrong line. You might find you’ve started something you can’t finish. But everything comes to depend on those beginnings. Once you’ve accomplished so much –
– then it is no longer possible to fail.’
He lets her go. For a second he seems to wait, as if he expects Anna to say something. When she doesn’t he crumples the ruined cloth, drops it on the tray beside him. The gesture of a diner at a good restaurant. He is no longer smiling. ‘From a certain point there is no going back. That is the point to reach.’
‘You make it sound easy.’
‘Inevitable. Not easy. I didn’t say that.’
‘The point of no return. Is that a quote?’
‘Kafka.’ But he shakes his head, as if something has troubled him. As if, Anna thinks, instead of proving his point to her, he has unearthed some doubt in himself, something better left buried. ‘Not a man much interested in success. When he wasn’t failing to write he was writing about failure. He’d like it here.’
‘Here? Why?’
‘Not here.’ He smiles, the wrinkles fanning from the corners of his eyes. To Anna he looks older. Which is to say he no longer seems younger than her, or ageless. There is less glamour about him each time they meet. ‘I meant here and now. I mean that people have come to appreciate failure. They find failure heroic, and they have no affection for success. They view it as a pitiful and woefully incurable psychological condition, a mental inability to be satisfied with the way things are and should be. A social disease. To be successful is to admit to a flaw in one’s soul.’
‘And are you?’
‘Am I what? Flawed?’
‘No.’ She laughs at last, and easily, as if with old friends. ‘Are you dissatisfied?’
‘No.’ He shakes his head. ‘That would be wrong. I cherish the life I have. So many questions, Anna, and I’ve never asked you anything. It doesn’t seem quite fair.’
She hesitates only for a second. ‘Then ask.’
He folds his arms and sits back, mocking her, sizing her up like a photographer. ‘Are you married?’
‘No!’
‘I’m sorry, was that too much question in your question? Would you like more sugar?’
She checks herself. ‘No.’
‘Good. Why aren’t you married?’
‘Why are you?’
‘Questions for questions. What about family?’
‘What about them?’
‘What are they like?’
‘Different. We’re not close. I see my sister. How about you?’
‘I’ve never met her.’
‘I meant your family.’
‘I know what you meant. I’m asking the questions round here. Do you have friends?’
‘Yes, I have friends.’
‘Tell me about them,’ he says, and unfolds his arms. His tone has changed, there is something in it, a hint of seriousness, and she answers fast, not liking it, guessing what is coming next, the examination of lovers.
‘You know, it’s not true that you’ve never asked me anything before. You’ve asked me lots of things.’
‘Have I?’
‘Last time you asked me if I liked my work, and I said yes.’
‘So you did.’
‘And you asked me if I thought everything had its price.’
‘And does it?’
‘You seemed to think so.’ There is a quality to their conversation Anna remembers perfectly, the quickness, the proximity of both laughter and anger. It is as if the words they say are less important than their rhythm, the grammar of emotion, which is like poetry, or music. Even so there is less intensity between them this time, and more warmth. It occurs to her that it is as if they have known one another for years, or as if they are passing strangers, who know they never will; who can say nothing or anything.
‘Did I think that?’ John asks. ‘Some days I do.’ He looks away, out of the far wall of glass, where the winter light under the trees is already softening to a form of dusk: just the way it did at SoftMark, Anna remembers, in the place where money is made without human intervention. When Law speaks again his voice is also fainter. ‘I think I was hoping you’d convince me I was wrong.’
‘Alright.’ She lowers the tablet computer. Folds her hands on top of it. ‘If that’s what you want. I think you’re wrong, I don’t agree.’
He smiles, perhaps for her. ‘Why?’
‘Because I don’t think that you buying an old tree off some octogenarian in Japan means everything has its price.’
‘There are currencies even less substantial than mine –’
‘I know what you’re talking about, John. I know when we’re discussing money and when we’re not. Don’t patronise me.’
‘Do I do that?’ He swings his long head back towards her, into shadow. Anna can just make out his expression of surprise. ‘I don’t think of you as someone to patronise.’
‘I think you’re talking about justice. You’re saying there’s always a price to pay. How often does that happen? When did you last see someone get what they deserve? What you’re talking about only happens
in bedtime stories. People get away with what they can, and they can get away with almost anything. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about money or anything else. If no one sees them, no one can stop them.’
‘You do.’
‘But I’m hardly going to change the way they live. And God isn’t a tax inspector.’
His laughter again, breaking through the conversation as if it has been there all along. ‘Some might disagree. So you don’t believe in Judgement? All that double-entry bookkeeping in the sky? Poetic justice?’
‘No. Who would exact it, the poets?’
This time he doesn’t laugh. ‘People might exact it on themselves.’
‘Why?’ Anna shakes her head. ‘No, what I see is that most people don’t pay, most of the time. Not everything has its price, because not everything is paid for. Who would really want it any other way? Would anyone wish poetic justice on anyone except their worst enemies? And what could they do except wish it?’
‘You make it sound simple.’
‘Well, it is. That’s what I think. If that’s what you mean.’
She pauses. Now it is her turn to wait. John Law has come to rest hunkered forward, his head bent. Only when it becomes clear that he isn’t going to reply does she lean forward herself. ‘Is that what you mean?’
‘I suppose it is.’ Faintly. No one to hear it but themselves.
‘John.’ She bows her head closer, until their foreheads touch. In the quiet she can feel the pulse trapped between his skin and bone. She can hear the synthetic thunder of an aeroplane. ‘What is it?’
‘Nothing.’
‘What is it you think you’ve done?’
‘Nothing. Not enough.’
‘Is it the case?’
He looks up, baffled out of himself. ‘Case?’
‘In Japan. The code in the bodies of people …’