Mirage

by James Follett

  ‘Now just hold on, Mister McNaill. This sounds heavy. I don’t mind sending you stuff that you could find out anyway if you weren’t so goddamn fat and lazy. But snooping. Checking up on people. That’s professional stuff.’

  ‘But, honey - you are a professional. Think on it - another six months .... Give you a chance to find out what really made Frances Stevenson tick, huh? I hear it’s giving you problems.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘My little spies are everywhere.’

  ‘That I can believe. So who is this guy? Hey - if he’s a draft dodger, you can go screw yourself.’

  ‘This is nothing to do with Vietnam.’

  Raquel looked mollified. Like many Americans of her age group, she had nothing but contempt for her country over its involvement in what she saw as the obscenity of the war in Vietnam. ‘Okay. So what’s he done?’

  McNaill heaved himself to his feet and felt in a pocket. He produced an envelope which he handed to Raquel. ‘Details in there. Much as we know. Daniel Kalen. About your age. Israeli.’

  ‘So we’re spying on all our friends now, are we?’

  McNaill gave a cold smile. ‘Who said the Israelis were our friends any more? Just get to know him. Find out why he’s here. There’s also some extra expenses in there.’

  ‘Why me, Mister McNaill?’

  ‘Thought it would interest you. Lloyd George was obsessed with Israel, wasn’t he?’ He turned to leave.

  ‘Hey - wait a minute, Mister McNaill. How the hell am I supposed to get to know this guy?’

  McNaill shrugged. ‘Search me, Mistress Gibbons. You’re the professional.’

  9

  August 1967

  Saturday night commotions in Brewer Street were frequent but this one was louder and much earlier than usual, and it was right under Daniel’s window. He turned down the volume on his record player and stuck his head out of the window, expecting to see a small crowd gathered outside the television shop watching a colour television test transmission.

  The black-haired American girl, who had been moving her belongings into the flat next to his for the past fifteen minutes, was involved in a heated altercation with Susan. The subject of the dispute was an item of furniture that was stuck in the passageway. Susan was clinging to a weedy-looking, pimply youth in mod get-up to prevent him fleeing the scene. ‘You stupid Yank!’ she was yelling. ‘Get the bloody thing out of the way!’

  ‘We’re trying to!’ the black-haired girl screamed back. ‘You think we jammed it in there deliberate?’

  A hippy standing by the open loading doors of a battered Bedford van seemed reluctant to intervene. Daniel went into the passageway and down the stairs which were darker than usual owing to the presence of a shabby tallboy wedged firmly in the front doorway. ‘Maybe I can shift it from my side!’ he shouted past the tallboy. The American girl broke off her argument. ‘Oh - could you? Could you please try.’

  Two determined heaves from Daniel and the tallboy came free. After that he was committed to hanging grimly on to the thing and guiding it while mounting the stairs backwards with the two girls lifting from below. The lack of feeling in his left foot caused him to stumble a couple of times before the tallboy was safely installed in the American girl’s flat. Susan dragged her pimply victim into her boudoir, the American girl paid off the van driver, Daniel returned to his record player, and peace, marred only by Susan’s vocal improvisations, returned to the building.

  A few minutes later there was a hesitant tap on Daniel’s door. It was the American girl. ‘I’m scrounging for coffee,’ she explained.

  Daniel held the door open. ‘Not only will I supply you with coffee,’ he said generously, ‘but I will make you some.’ Seeing her uncertain expression he added: ‘It’s okay. You’re safe. I only force myself on girls in mini-skirts.’

  ‘You know how to say the right things to put a girl at her ease,’ said Raquel, sitting cross-legged on the floor and sorting through Daniel’s albums. The easy rapport of the young did away with the tedium of conventional introductions. She pounced on Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. ‘Oh great. Can we play this? The bitch who was rooming with me took mine. My name’s Raquel.’ ‘Daniel,’ said Daniel from the kitchenette, looking for a second respectable mug.

  ‘Not Dan?’

  ‘Definitely not Dan.’

  ‘You like the Beatles?’ Raquel asked, reading the album sleeve. ‘Not as much as the Rolling Stones. The Stones have a sort of raunchy rawness. The Beatles are too whimsical.’

  ‘I know what you mean. But then the Rolling Stones did “Lady Jane” and the Beatles do Sergeant Pepper.’

  Daniel chuckled. ‘Nothing is certain in this life. Are you American?’

  ‘New York. Here on a research grant. Is that your Mini-Cooper parked outside?’

  Daniel found a marginally suitable cup. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I just love them. Hey - you’ve got one of those new cassette tape recorders!’

  Daniel glanced into the living-room and saw Raquel looking curiously at the tiny Philips recorder. ‘Does the thought of drinking from a cracked mug make you want to throw up?’ he asked.

  ‘Sure. Cream with no sugar.’ She put down the recorder and toed off her sneakers.

  ‘I’ve only got milk.’

  Raquel sighed. ‘Milk’s fine. You’re obviously not American yet you’ve got a kind of West Coast accent.’

  Daniel laughed as he waited for the electric kettle to boil. ‘That’s what people keep telling me since I came to England. I’m from Israel. Nearly all our English teachers are American.’ He watched Raquel out of the corner of his eye as he spooned instant coffee into the mugs. Despite her casual demeanour, she seemed nervous. Ill at ease. It seemed that her incessant talking was to cover a guilty secret. Perhaps she was nervous at being alone with him. But then it was she who had made the approach. Her cat-like eyes were darting around the room - taking in everything.

  ‘You never can tell with you Israelis,’ she was saying. ‘There’s that Abba guy on television every night...’

  ‘Abba Eban. The Foreign Minister.’

  ‘... with an accent straight out of the House of Lords. You don’t look like one.’

  ‘One what?’

  ‘An Israelite!’

  ‘Oh? And what should Israelis look like?’

  ‘You’re too fair-skinned. Like a Swedish boy I knew. Shouldn’t you be in the army or something? Even girls tote rifles in Israel.’ ‘The war’s over,’ said Daniel, pouring water into the mugs and not looking at her.

  Raquel snorted. ‘Shows how much you know about your country. Don’t you watch television? The Russians are rearming the Egyptians on a massive scale. Nasser’s boasting about annihilating Israel before we land on the moon.’ She took the mug from Daniel. ‘Hey - you’re not a draft dodger are you?’

  Daniel was tempted to snap at her but was disarmed by her air of wide-eyed innocence. Instead he merely grinned and shook his head. ‘I’ve done my time in the services.’

  ‘Is that how you got the limp?’

  ‘I have not got a limp. Just a bit of stiffness, that’s all.’

  She made a noise that sounded suspiciously like suppressed laughter. Before Daniel had a chance to get angry, she was off on another tack. ‘So what are you doing now? Aw hell...’ She sensed his irritation and clapped her hand over her mouth. ‘My ma used to go on at me about sticking my nose in other people’s business. Sorry. And I talk too much. I didn’t think you could be a draft dodger. I mean - you guys really are fighting for your country and you get your wars over and finished quickly. Not like that God-awful mess in Vietnam.’ She glanced around the room again and spotted a photograph of Leonora on a low shelf. She shuffled across the floor on her bottom and grabbed it. ‘Girl back home?’

  ‘My mother. Taken last year.’

  ‘Jeez - she looks young.’ Raquel put the picture back and studied it. Elbows on knees. Head cocked at an angle, her chin dug pensively
into the palms of her hands. ‘That’s where you got your blond looks from.’

  ‘My grandparents were Armenian,’ Daniel explained.

  ‘What do your parents do?’

  ‘They run a moshav.’

  ‘Profitable?’

  Daniel looked sharply at her. ‘So you know what a moshav is?’ ‘Doesn’t everyone?’

  He regarded her steadily. ‘There’s an Israeli girl where I work who

  didn’t even know the difference between a moshav and a kibbutz. How is it you seem to know?’

  Raquel realized that she had made a tactical blunder. Best cover it with the truth. ‘I’m in England researching the life of Lloyd George. So I’ve learned a little about Israel.’ She smiled. ‘Just tell me to belt up if I’m asking too many questions, but it’s all in the line of study.’ ‘You’re not asking too many questions,’ said Daniel, sitting on the floor opposite her. ‘But you did forget to make me swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.’

  Raquel stared at him for a moment and they both burst out laughing. They made small talk for another ten minutes until Raquel drained her mug and pushed herself upright from her cross-legged position without putting her hands on the floor. ‘Hell. Look at the time,’ she exclaimed, heading for the door. ‘I’ve not made a start on unpacking.’

  ‘You know where to find me if you need anything,’ said Daniel, opening the door for her. ‘I wasn’t planning on going out tonight.’

  Raquel’s eyes sparkled with laughter. ‘Okay. Give me a couple of hours to get straight and we’ll listen to Sergeant Pepper. Deal?’ ‘

  Deal,’ said Daniel solemnly. ‘Provided you promise not to wear a mini skirt. I hate being distracted when I’m listening to music.’

  10

  ‘I tell you he’s nothing,’ said Raquel, calling McNaill from a telephone box in Parliament Square.

  ‘What about his parents?’

  ‘What about them? Listen carefully, Mister McNaill, because I don’t think I’m getting through to you. I’ve only met him three times and we’ve just had lunch together. That’s enough to discover that he’s just an ordinary guy a long way from home. He works for El Al and his parents run a small farm. A moshav. His interests are miniskirts and Mini-Coopers. He’s not going to blow up the world, and he’s not in league with Ho Chi-minh plotting the armed overthrow of the United States. If he was, I’d throw in with him.’

  ‘I want you to stay with him,’ McNaill instructed.

  ‘I don’t have much choice. I’ve rented an apartment in the same building - on the same floor as his.’

  ‘You have?’ McNaill sounded pleased. ‘Number?’

  ‘One B. I was planning on moving anyway. It’s better than the dump I was in. I’ve taken a six-month lease, so you stick to your part of the deal, Mister McNaill.’

  ‘Sure I will. Anything else?’

  ‘Give me a chance. I only met him the day before yesterday. But there is one thing. He’s got a limp.’

  ‘A limp what?’

  ‘Don’t come the acid, Mister McNaill. He walks with a limp and tries to hide it.’

  She could hear McNaill making notes. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Fine. That’s smart of you - moving in next to him. You’re a real professional, sweetheart.’

  ‘I’m not a professional anything, you creep!’ Raquel yelled but was too late because McNaill had cut the line.

  11

  Daniel opened the door of his flat and blinked in astonishment. He had never seen Raquel in anything but faded jeans and decidedly grubby T-shirts. He never imagined for a moment that she owned anything even remotely resembling a dress, and he was convinced that her only handbag was the huge leather contraption that looked large enough for furniture removals. The sight confronting him was a dazzling young woman wearing an outfit that could earn her a jail sentence in Jerusalem. He held his hands mock-begging fashion and gave a passable imitation of a sex-starved dog baying at the moon; a performance that elicited a half-embarrassed giggle from Raquel. She looked self-consciously down at her new dress. A perfect jet black that matched her hair and eyes.

  ‘It’s not too short, is it?’

  ‘Well,’ said Daniel admiringly, ‘let’s say that I can’t guarantee your safety tonight.’

  She smiled mischievously, matching his mood. ‘Who said I wanted to be safe?’ She took Daniel’s arm and held him in a gesture of affection. ‘You don’t look so bad yourself. I told you you’d look fantastic in a white suit.’

  ‘It won’t last until morning.’

  ‘Just so long as you do.’

  Daniel smiled down into her eyes. Her skilled application of eye shadow made them look even more cat-like than usual. ‘So what’s the surprise venue?’

  ‘Pink Floyd.’

  ‘Never heard of him.’

  ‘Him is a “they”. You will. We’d better take a cab. You won’t be in any fit state to drive back.’

  ‘But I hardly ever drink,’ Daniel protested.

  ‘Who said anything about drink?’

  With its four thousand watts of sound from a shuddering stack of WEM amplifiers, and an arsenal of lights and strobes that could create a display equal to the Dresden fire storm, the UFO was the first, the brightest, noisiest and best of London’s booming population of psychedelic clubs. With his reason poleaxed by the pounding magic of Syd Barrett’s Pink Floyd, Daniel had no idea that he was sharing with five hundred other young people what was to become a fragment of history that would eventually mark 1967 as the golden year of rock. He was not even aware of the pain in his left foot as he danced with Raquel; his whole being was swept up on an inhibition-loosening tidal wave of marijuana, lights and mind- numbing rhythm that propelled him through the night and into the back of a small-hours scurrying taxi where he entwined arms, legs and lips with Raquel as it bore them through the silent streets. Back at Daniel’s flat they hurriedly undressed each other in fumbling darkness and clung to each other like a couple about to be separated by a war. The urgency of their love-making was born of a heady need to satisfy passions unleashed by the music and pot. Their bodies greedily demanding of each other and eagerly giving - fulfilling a straightforward honest craving to fuck and be fucked. Tenderness followed later in a winding-down epilogue of gentle, exploring kisses, and then sleep.

  Raquel was the first to wake. She rested her weight on one elbow and looked down at Daniel - wondering why McNaill was so interested in him. She was about to pull the covers back over him when she noticed across the instep of his left foot a sweep of puckered skin around some recently-healed stitches. She looked closer and realized that Daniel’s foot was a mass of lesions and delicate stitches. His sole and heel bore signs of fading bruises. He stirred and rolled on to his back. She leaned over, brushing her hair across his chest and kissing him on the lips until his eyes opened. He touched her pert breasts and was about to say something but she pressed a silencing finger to his lips.

  ‘We’ll talk about it later,’ she said. ‘When we’ve showered. Coffee?’

  ‘Mmm. About eight cups, I think.’

  Daniel’s eyes followed Raquel’s lithe form as she darted from the bedroom. A moment later he came up behind her and circled his arms around her waist as she stood in unselfconscious nakedness at the kitchenette, waiting for the kettle to boil. ‘Where’s Caroline on this thing?’ she asked, twiddling with the tuning knob on his transistor radio.

  ‘I think you’ve lost it.’

  ‘Well - if I hadn’t -1 definitely have now,’ said Raquel impishly.

  ‘One day,’ said Daniel while fiddling with the radio, ‘I’m going to learn the secret of making awful jokes first thing in the morning.’

  Daniel found Jack de Manio’s programme on the BBC’s Home Service. Mention of Israel by a news reader stayed his quest for Radio Caroline. The colour drained from his face as he listened ...

  ‘Mr Abba Eban, the Israeli Foreign Minister, declined to comment on the partial arms embargo imposed
by General de Gaulle but our Jerusalem correspondent reports that the decision has been greeted with anger and dismay by the Cabinet - especially when it was discovered that a consignment of urgently needed spares for Israel’s existing Mirage fighters had been seized by French customs officers. A spokesman for the Likud party described President de Gaulle’s move as an act of unmitigated treachery, saying that the fifty Mirage jets had already been paid for in hard-earned dollars. It is understood that a fleet of missile-carrying small attack craft under construction in Cherbourg for the Israeli Navy is not affected by the embargo ... .’

  ‘Daniel?’ said Raquel anxiously, seeing his expression. He motioned her to silence while he listened to the rest of the report.

  ‘It was announced by NASA yesterday that they hoped to resume test flights next year in the Apollo moon programme. Test launchings of the giant Saturn Five rocket were abandoned last January when three astronauts were killed—’

  Daniel spun the tuning knob in a fruitless search for another station carrying the news. He switched off the radio and sat staring at the silent speaker. Raquel rested her hand on his shoulder but he paid no attention to her touch.

  ‘Does it matter so much?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course it matters!’ he snapped.

  ‘Can’t you buy jets from America?’

  Daniel shook his head and covered her hand with his. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so. Everyone’s frightened of upsetting the Arabs. Even if we could, it’s not as simple as that. We’ve geared everything to the Mirages. Training. Armament. Maintenance. Everything. The Mirage was designed specially with our needs in mind.’

  Raquel slid seductively on to Daniel’s knee and kissed him on the lips. Her warmth and the sensual closeness of her warm body did nothing to dispel his inner turmoil. His country was alone and friendless. The feeling of guilt and foreboding that he had been nursing in his breast for the past month suddenly welled up, souring the heady excitement of living and working in London, and of the last few hours in particular. Even though the affectionate, blackeyed Raquel, now running wicked fingers through his hair, was a part of that London.