by William Boyd
‘But so what? For Christ’s sake.’
‘Listen. You’re called Dr Dubrovnik, you’re an art historian from Czechoslovakia.’
Irene stopped. ‘Henderson, I’m warning you.’ Her voice was stern. ‘I’m not playing any of your stupid games.’
‘Please, it’s vital. Just for a minute or two. I’ll explain later.’ He felt a light sweat moist on his face. They made their way across the stepping stones. He glanced at Irene. Her eyes were narrow.
‘Dr Irene Dubrovnik,’ Henderson announced, and introduced her to the other members of the family.
‘A pleasure to meet you at last,’ Sereno said. ‘I’m familiar with your work.’
‘How. Do. You. Do?’ Cora said slowly, as if talking to a peasant or simpleton. ‘Welcome. To. Our. Country.’
‘D’you miss Czecho, Chechlso, Miss Dubronik. Nik?’ Shanda burped.
‘May we offer you a drink?’ Sereno asked, all oleaginous charm, signalling an Indian maiden.
‘Yeah. I’ll have a large scotch, straight up with a twist,’ Irene said, looking at Henderson.
They sat themselves down. More drinks were ordered. Some sort of tremor had established itself in Henderson’s left thigh and, mysteriously, his indigestion had returned. He felt a fire in his throat. To his alarm and dismay he found himself sitting between Sereno and Freeborn. Cora lit a cigarette and exhaled. Irene vigorously fanned the air.
The drinks arrived. Henderson buried his head in the cool clump of celery frothing from the top of a new bloody mary. Please God, he prayed into the leaves, let her play the game.
‘Dr Dubrovnik,’ Cora said. ‘Excuse me, Dr Dubrov-nik?’
Irene refused to acknowledge the pseudonym.
‘Isn’t this hotel quite astonishing?’ Henderson piped up. ‘I had quite a problem with my canoe, I must say.’
‘What’d he say?’ Shanda asked Gint.
‘His canoe,’ Gint said.
‘Mr Dores,’ Sereno breathed in his ear. His large moustache and glossy purple lips were close to his face. ‘We may be rivals, but I’m glad that we can behave in a civilized way.’
Henderson stood up. ‘No rest for the wicked,’ he said cheerfully. ‘We must leave you good people to your dinner.’
‘Wha’shesay?’
‘Thanks for the drink.’ Irene drained hers in a gulp.
‘Goodbye, Dr Dubrovnik,’ Cora said.
Irene ignored her.
‘Dr Dubrovnik?’
‘Goodbye,’ Henderson said, hauling Irene away by the arm.
They walked off. Henderson waved farewell. Just made it, he thought, as nausea joined forces once more with indigestion.
‘Don’t ever land me in that kind of shit again,’ Irene said coldly. ‘I don’t want to play in your fantasies.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It was necessary. Things aren’t going so well…’ He sensed this wasn’t the moment to tell her of the cancelled trip. ‘That chap Sereno’s trying to buy the paintings too.’
‘Who’s that weird girl in the shades?’
‘Gage’s daughter, Cora.’
‘God, spooky.’
They were in the scenic elevator. Irene looked out at the vista and laughed. ‘Jesus Christ, Henderson, only you would choose a place like this.’ She leant against him. He took in her appearance for the first time. She wore a dark green jersey dress with buttons down the front and flat-soled beige shoes. He ran his hand down the warm furrow of her spine. No bra.
In the room the champagne and sandwiches had been delivered. They had a glass of champagne. They kissed. He pulled her through into the bedroom and they fell on the bed. Irene propped her head on a hand and looked down into his face.
‘Has it been a bad week? Really that bad?’
‘The worst ever.’
‘Poor Henderson.’
‘Let’s not talk about it.’
‘But I want to hear everything.’
‘Later.’
‘Well at least it’s all over now.’
Henderson swallowed. Was this the moment to tell her? But Irene ducked forward and kissed his forehead. He shut his eyes. Then he felt her lips on his left eyelid. Her dark mouth closed hot over the socket. The tense tip of her tongue massaged the eyeball through the lid. Technicolour photomatic explosions seemed to brighten the inside of his skull. His left side erupted in goose-pimples.
‘Stop it, please,’ he said weakly. She pulled back and he opened his eyes. Her face was blurry through warm pink tears.
‘What’s that?’ he said. ‘Where did you learn that? It’s appalling.’
‘I like to feel your eyeball squirm beneath my tongue. It sort of throbs.’
‘But I can’t see any more. It hurts.’
‘It’s designed to stimulate me, dummy.’
He unbuttoned her dress at the neck and pushed it back to reveal one breast, pale and flat with its small immaculate nipple, milk-chocolate brown. He pressed his weeping eye against it. He felt his nausea and indigestion dissolve into relief. At last, he thought, at last.
He got up and took off his tie and shirt. He kicked off his shoes with pantomimic abandon, removed his socks and trousers. Irene lay on the bed and watched him with a smile. He eased off his increasingly taut underpants.
‘Well, hello there,’ Irene said.
He slid onto the bed to join her. He found it pleasantly erotic to be naked while she was clothed. Methodically he undid more buttons to expose both breasts. He bent his head.
‘Let’s stay here tomorrow,’ Irene murmured. ‘This hotel is fun.’ She kissed his crown.
Henderson sat up. ‘Ah,’ he said slowly. ‘I was going to tell you. There’s been a hitch. I’ve got to go back.’ Blankly, he watched himself detumesce—the organ showed uncanny prescience, he thought.
‘What? To New York?’
‘No. Luxora Beach.’
‘Bastard,’ she said with chilling matter-of-factness, doing up her buttons. ‘But you needed a quick fuck, just the same.’
‘Listen, it wasn’t like that, honestly,’ he pleaded. ‘I’ve only just found out. Everything has suddenly gone horribly wrong. Nothing but disasters.’ He launched into a garbled desperate narrative about Gage, the picture, Beeby. The arrival of Sereno and Gint, Freeborn’s man-oeuvrings, Gage’s second thoughts, Bryant’s shocking betrothal to Duane…
‘And who the shit is Bryant?’
‘Oh Christ…Ah, she’s a girl…’
‘You can’t help it, can you? You sad fuck.’
‘She’s only fourteen. She’s not a friend. Jesus.’ He shut his eyes and pulled the coverlet around him.
‘So what are you doing with a fourteen-year-old girl?’
‘She’s the daughter of…Thomas Beeby. I promised him I’d—’
‘Bullshit, Henderson. You prick. You English prick.’
Why, he thought wildly, should the adjective make the noun more pejorative?
There was a knock at the door.
‘Bloody hell!’ Henderson swore. He jumped off the bed and grabbed his dressing gown. But Irene had already gone to the door. He heard a voice. A woman’s voice.
‘Oh. I’m sorry. Is this…is this 35}?’
Henderson fought furiously with an inside-out sleeve.
‘That’s what it says on the door,’ Irene replied coldly.
Then he heard a wail, a keening, distressed cry. Christ, who can it be, he thought? Bryant? Cora? Melissa? Shanda? Fearfully, he peered through the crack at the door jamb. He saw Irene, her arms folded sternly across her chest, confronting a young blonde woman in military uniform with corporal’s stripes on her sleeves. She was sobbing fiercely into her cupped hands. A WAF or WAC, he thought: what ghastly new nemesis is this? Then the woman looked up and screamed in his direction.
‘Alvin, you bastard! I never want to see you again!’ She turned and ran down the corridor.
Alvin? Just a moment. His spearing hand finally engaged the stubborn sleeve. He sprang to the door.
<
br /> ‘What fucking game is this, Alvin?’ Irene demanded.
Just at that moment the door opposite was thrown open and a harassed General Dunklebanger appeared, zipping up his flies. He looked disbelievingly down the long corridor at the fleeing WAC.
‘Mary?’ he said looking piteously back at Henderson and Irene. ‘Was that Mary?’
‘I think there’s been—‘ Henderson began, but he was interrupted by a bellow of primeval grief from the general, who set off thundering down the passageway after his beloved. Henderson took a few futile paces after him. He saw the general arrive at the lift doors just as they closed in his face. He darted to and fro—there were three lifts serving the thirty-fifth floor—pressing buttons frantically. Eventually another lift arrived and he leapt in. Henderson shook his head in astonishment. A few other guests had emerged from their rooms to see what the fuss was. Henderson realized he was in his dressing gown. He returned to his own door. It was locked. Oh Christ no. He tapped softly on it with his finger tips.
‘Irene,’ he whispered. ‘Open up. I can explain everything.’ He looked over his shoulder and smiled reassuringly at the curious guests.
‘Irene, ’ he hissed. ‘For God’s sake open up? He rapped again.
He had to wait a full ten minutes. He passed the time whistling quietly to himself, pacing unconcernedly to and fro in a tight oval, affecting profound interest in the pattern and texture of the corridor carpet for minutes at a time. Finally the door opened and Irene stepped out. She had her case in her hand.
‘I’m getting out,’ she said. ‘You stay in the madhouse with the crazies. Goodbye.’
She walked purposefully away. Henderson dithered for a moment.
‘Irene, wait,’ he called.
Further down the passage a man’s head popped out of a doorway.
‘For God’s sake, will you people please party in your rooms?’ he demanded of Irene.
She said something to him in reply that caused him to start back in shock.
Henderson ran back inside and started to pull on his clothes. There was nothing to be gained by pursuing her in his dressing gown. He felt an ascending panic stirring within him. Irene’s tone had been so uncompromisingly final. She couldn’t leave, he told himself: she had to hear him out. Given his predicament, anyone would understand. She couldn’t abandon him like this. He clawed on his jacket and trousers. He pulled on his left sock and found his left shoe in a corner. He looked around the room for his other shoe and sock. He found the sock, but not the shoe, such had been the frivolity with which he had disrobed.
‘Oh God, please,’ he prayed out loud, peering under the bed. He saw it: at the back in the middle, flush against the skirting board. He tried to reach it but his fingers were inches short. He struggled mightily to shift the bed but, for some unknown reason, it appeared to be bolted in place. In his mind’s eye, he saw Irene being paddled across the atrium lake. There was nothing for it. He ran awkwardly out of the room and sprinted like a club-footed athlete down the passage to the lifts. He pressed the descend button. Obligingly, one lift was already ascending rapidly to his floor. 33, 34, 35, bing!
The door opened. For an instant he saw General Dunklebanger leaning despairingly against the lift side.
Then, with a cry of pure rage, the general surged out, fingers closing round Henderson’s throat and they fell grappling to the floor. The man was wiry and tough, but Henderson—strengthened by his own urgent needs and panic, and his body brimming with adrenalin—struggled free.
The general was on his knees, panting hoarsely.
‘Leave me alone, you mad bugger!’ Henderson shrieked. The lift doors were still open. The general got to his feet, adopting a shaky wrestler’s stance and began to advance on him again.
‘She got the wrong room number, you bloody cretin!’ Henderson yelled in frustration. ‘It’s not my fault!’
The general paused, then folded to the floor in a heap, making childlike crying noises. Henderson jumped over him and into the lift. The doors slid to. Henderson punched button number one.
As he emerged high in the bright space of the atrium, he peered out hopefully at the scene below. There was Irene. Just getting into a canoe. The lift came to a halt, and Henderson ran out. ‘Irene!’ he called. ‘Wait!’
The atrium floor was busy with people. Henderson dodged his way through the crowd to the canoe embarking point. Some child shouted ‘Look, mom, that man’s only got one shoe!’
A small queue had formed at the lakeside, all the canoes were in commission. Henderson pushed his way to the front.
‘Excuse me, sir, but would you wait in line? It’ll only be a couple of minutes.’
Henderson saw Irene approaching the far bank.
‘Irene! Wait!’ he bellowed plaintively across the water. Everybody looked around. Except Irene.
‘Give me a canoe!’ he begged.
‘Sir, please! Two minutes.’ The cowboy’s strong arms held him back.
Henderson looked at the lake. He could see the bottom clearly through the dancing water. Eighteen inches down, two feet at the most, he calculated.
He jumped in.
He went in up to his waist, gasping at the shock of the cold water. ‘‘Waist deep!’ he exclaimed with mad outrage. ‘That’s dangerous. What about safety regulations?…’
He began to slosh his way heavily across to the far shore, arms above his head, a creaming bow wave at his waist, like a determined marine invading some Pacific island. There were shouts, laughs and a few screams from onlookers and hotel staff, but he was possessed with unfamiliar singlemindedness. He forged on through the water. Canoes took avoiding action. ‘Irene, wait!’ he cried again. To his dismay he saw her get out of her canoe and march into the forest.
‘Stop that woman!’ he bellowed hoarsely. ‘She’s sick. She’s forgotten her medicine.’
Willing hands reached out to help him as he reached the far bank.
‘Life or death,’ he gasped. ‘Matter of.’ And stumbled into the trees.
He broke out into the lobby and limped-ran—clunk-splat, clunk-splat—across to the main doors, leaving a trail of wetness like a slug. A taxi pulled away into the main street. Another rolled up promptly to take its place at the foot of the steps. The driver leapt out at the sight of the distraught and dripping Henderson.
‘Follow that cab,’ Henderson croaked.
‘Hey, man, no way.’ The taxi driver was fat and needed a shave. He blocked Henderson’s access to the car, short stubby fingertips laid gently on Henderson’s heaving chest.
‘Look, it’s a matter of life and death, for God’s sake!’
‘Sure it is. That’s what they all say, bub. But no way you gettin’ in my cab like that, man. Soakin’ wet, only one shoe. No way.’
‘I’ll give you a hundred dollars!’
‘Let’s see your money.’
Henderson wrestled with his sopping hip pocket and produced his wallet. He opened it up: an anthology of credit cards, two tens and three singles.
‘You don’t got no hundred bucks, man. You just better go on back inside, dry yourself off.’ The taxi driver considerately helped him back up the steps to the lobby, Henderson suddenly as quiescent as a chronic invalid being ushered back to bed. ‘Go on now, man. You go on change your clothes. Then I’ll give you a ride.’
A dark listless resignation had settled on Henderson as he was paddled back across the atrium lake. A large and curious crowd watched him disembark, Sereno and Cora amongst their number.
‘Is Dr Dubrovnik all right?’ Sereno asked.
‘That was some display, Mr Dores. Most impressive,’ Cora said. Her lips weren’t smiling, but her dark lenses obscured eyes bright with amusement, he felt sure. But he was too weak and overcome to make any riposte. He limped off towards the scenic elevator and his lonely room.
Chapter Eleven
Predictably, Henderson slept briefly and uneasily, troubled by violent dreams, that night. But in the morning found, to his sur
prise, that his mortification and embarrassment did not reach the zenith he might have suspected. Too many potential disasters lay ahead, with hectoring claims on his attention. And besides, there was nothing he could do about Irene now, he realized. It would have been utterly pointless to have followed her to Atlanta airport and attempt to engineer a reconciliation in the departure lounge. That would have to await his return to New York, whenever that might be.
As he lay alone in the big bed, he thought back over his manic wade through the atrium lake more with astonishment than shame or self-rebuke. He tried to recreate the thought processes that had led him to behave in such a rash and wildly conspicuous manner, but in vain. It was as if the semi-shod, disappointed lover bellowing his anguished pleas across the crowded pond had been another person, such was the uniquely strange nature of the act. He had, he realized, for the first time in his life, given absolutely no thought to the reactions of others. He hadn’t cared; he had been totally indifferent to opinion. He frowned.
The one meagre consolation of the whole saddening business was that he was now freed to concentrate on securing the pictures for Mulholland, Melhuish. Beeby’s new offer on the Dutch pictures, some judicious hope-raising on the prospective auction prices of the Sisleys…Gage needed money; money would have to be the spur. Publicity, prestige exhibitions in London; they carried no weight.
He got out of bed. Then there was Bryant and Duane. He got dressed. He hoped desperately that a firm talking-to and reminders of Melissa’s monstrous displeasure might make the girl see sense. He couldn’t imagine what had got into her head. Duane, a thirty-four-year-old layabout with a liking for loud music and a chronic incapacity to fix cars…what could a pretty, privileged girl like Bryant see in an almost mythically disfavoured human being like that?
He ordered breakfast from room service. He felt also, if he were honest with himself, a certain amount of jealousy. If she could want to marry a lout like Duane, why was she so hostile to him? Good Lord, he thought, I’m beginning to sound like Pruitt Halfacre. But this morning, awash with self-pity and hurt, he needed to be liked by someone.