1985 - Stars and bars

by William Boyd

  All that night there had been a hectic traffic of doctors, undertakers and the—happily innocent—T. J. Cardew. Loomis Gage’s instructions had been for a quiet family funeral. There seemed no purpose in delaying further and the service was scheduled for the next afternoon, four thirty.

  And here they all were, Henderson thought, bickering about the spoils with typically wicked speed. Talk about funeral baked meats furnishing forth marriage tables…He felt a shocked sadness at Gage’s sudden demise. The family—with the exception of Alma-May—seemed to have accepted it with easy stoicism. He had liked the sprightly old man, more than he had realized. He remembered their last conversation with regret: Gage had offered him his affection but he had been too reserved or too tramelled up in securing the paintings to respond. What had he said? ‘Thank you very much.’ He was disgusted with himself, but then that was always the way, he reflected bitterly, you always leave things too late. As for old Gage, it might have been more apt if he had died some minutes earlier in the arms of Monika Cardew—petit mart suddenly grand —rather than through the effort of shouting at a parasitic lout to turn his rock music down. But the ‘grand design’, he was aware, was very proficient when it came to faulty timing.

  He felt too, along with his sadness, the bitter certainty of what he knew would be eventual defeat. Freeborn had assumed an air of swaggering authority, of the sort favoured by junior officers who have just led a successful coup d’etat. Cora alone could do nothing to counter her brother’s new sway; and the full effect of Beckman’s deluded craven apathy was more than apparent. He had been so close, he thought with a surge of harsh selfishness. If only Gage had died a few days later…

  He slumped in his chair for a moment, the utter waste of all his efforts confronting him. He made one final desperate, futile try.

  ‘Mr Gage,’ he said seriously, mustering all his formality and gravitas. ‘Mr Sereno, Mr Gint. As far as I am concerned, Loomis Gage and I had made a binding agreement. If you proceed independently I have to warn you of potential legal—’

  He leapt from his chair as Freeborn sprang across the room after him. Sereno, Gint and Beckman held him back.

  ‘You say you had an agreement,’ Sereno said coolly, once Freeborn’s lurid oaths had subdued.

  ‘There must have been,’ Cora said. ‘He told me. He wouldn’t have mentioned it otherwise, would he?’

  ‘Did you witness any agreement?’ Sereno asked Cora, as Freeborn was resettled in his chair.

  ‘No.’ A glum, sidelong look at Henderson.

  ‘Did anyone witness it?’ Sereno asked.

  ‘No. But—’

  ‘You’re welcome to take us to court, Mr Dores,’ Sereno said. ‘But I don’t think you’ll get very far.’

  They all looked at Henderson. He stood up.

  ‘You’re making a terrible mistake,’ was all he could think of to say.

  The afternoon sun warmed the pates of the large crowd of mourners in Luxora Beach’s small, uncrowded cemetery. Henderson stood with the Gage family who were ranked behind the Reverend T.J. Cardew. Across the grave on the other side was a group of some forty or fifty local people. The Stars and Stripes and the Stars and Bars on the post office flagpole flew at half mast. The streets were empty, shops were closed, even the neon beer signs in the bar windows had been extinguished. Hender-son looked around for Bryant, but she didn’t appear to be present; neither was her beau or her future mother-in-law. Shanda had said she thought they were making their own way to the cemetery, but Alma-May had been so stricken with grief it wasn’t clear if she would have been able to stand the strain.

  Henderson hadn’t felt like coming at all, but considered he owed it to old man Gage. He had been transported to the cemetery in a car containing Sereno, Gint, Cora and Shanda (Freeborn and Beckman were coming behind with the other pall-bearers) and had had to maintain the control over his disappointment and bitterness for another hour or so. Sereno had offered him his hand and said, ‘No hard feelings.’ Against his better wishes, Henderson had shaken it.

  All around him now was the sound of discreet muffled lamentations as Loomis Gage’s body was strenuously lowered into the ground. Henderson looked dry-eyed at the cross atop the wooden spire of the Baptist church. Gall and wormwood, he thought, goats and monkeys. Someone up there is having fun at my expense. He tasted ashes in his mouth.

  Then, as if in a dream, he heard his name being called. He looked around with alarm to discover he was the cynosure of all eyes. T.J. Cardew was pointing at him and talking in the loud overstressed voice preferred by preachers and soap-box orators.

  ‘…yes, Mr Henderson Dores, of London, England, was an inspiration to me. It was his words that came instantly to mind when I heard of the death of my dear friend Loomis Gage. His innocent and yet profound words. Tell them what you said, Henderson, tell our good friends, the good people gathered here today.’

  Henderson took a frightened half-pace to the rear. What on earth is the man talking about? he asked himself in quickening panic. What was he meant to say? Should he fall on his knees perhaps? Dim memories of revivalist meetings capered through his mind. Play for time: cry ‘Hallelujah’?

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, fingers on the knot of his tie. ‘I don’t, um…’

  ‘Those simple words, Henderson, when we first met,’ Cardew prompted with a sad smile.

  ‘Oh.’ He racked his brains.

  ‘What you said to me—a question—at our first meeting. Remember? The question you asked me?’

  ‘Oh yes…Got you.’

  ‘Go on, Henderson. Repeat your question.’

  ‘How is Patch?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘How is Patch? That’s what I said. When we met.’

  ‘No, sir.’ A slight tautening of irritation sent Cardew’s smile momentarily awry. A mutter of curiosity passed through the crowd, like a cough in an auditorium.

  ‘I refer,’ Cardew continued, ‘to that simple and touching inquiry you made of me. ‘Tell me, T.J.,’ you said, ‘tell me, T.J. How do you explain the ‘Beach’ in Luxora Beach?’ Do you remember now, Henderson?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t actu—’

  ‘And I said,’ Cardew turned back to the crowd. ‘I said to Henderson. Henderson, I said, ‘Why, Henderson, I do not know, Henderson.’ And friends, I didn’t know. And yet I’ve lived among you now these last eleven years. And I thought of Henderson’s simple, childlike words—‘How do you explain the ‘Beach’ in Luxora Beach?’ when I was brought the news of my good and dear friend Loomis’s untimely sleep in the Lord. I thought, simple Henderson here, a visitor to our town, asks an obvious, very simple question, to which I cannot reply. And I bethought to myself, T.J., I said, T.J., how little we know of the good Lord’s will, how much we take unthinkingly for granted when a simple almost foolish question can reveal—’

  ‘Excuse me, TJ.’ A tall old cadaverous man held up his trembling hand. ‘But everybody knows why Luxora Beach is called Luxora Beach. It’s because the early settlers done planted a grove of beech saplings they’d brung from Europe. ‘Cept they all died the first summer-the saplings that is. It should be Luxora Beeches—B, E, E, C,H,E,S.’

  ‘Well thank you kindly, George, thank you. As I was saying, friends, Henderson’s childish, ignorant question—’

  ‘Hold on there one second, T.J.’ a plump red-faced man interjected. ‘George is wrong. See, time was, the Ockmulgokee river took a mighty swerve hereabouts and threw up a perfect crescent of white sand on the bank. When the first settlers arrived they found sand dollars on the beach. Now, Luxora was the name of the first mayor’s wife. The town used to be called Luxora’s Beach.’

  ‘Well, thank you, Willard Creed. Henderson’s thoughtless, stupid question—’

  ‘Willard Creed, that ain’t true, an’ you know it.’ A thin old lady with pale blue spectacles stepped forward shakily. She addressed her remarks to Henderson. ‘You see what happened was that the first trading posts here were set up b
y the Luxora Bleach company of Montgomery, Alabama in 1835. The store had a big sign up saying ‘Luxora Bleach’ and folks kinda like the sound of—’

  ‘THANK YOU, MY FRIENDS!’ yelled Cardew over the hot debate that had sprung up. ‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Amen.’

  Henderson walked listlessly back through the town with Cora.

  ‘I think somehow Cardew blames me,’ Henderson said. ‘He refused to shake my hand after the service. He seemed terribly upset.’

  ‘I think that’s the kind of funeral my father would have enjoyed.’

  ‘Really?’ He looked at her. He dropped his voice. ‘Listen, Cora, I haven’t had a chance…I’m terribly sorry about last night…I got carried away.’

  ‘Eoh, don’t mention it,’ she said in her English accent.

  ‘Pride comes before a fall,’ he said, as they walked past the post office. ‘Better get it over with, I suppose.’ He paused by the phone box. ‘I wonder what Beeby will say?’

  ‘I want your resignation on my desk tomorrow morning,’ Beeby said in a tense furious voice. ‘How could you let me down in this way, Henderson? How could you?’ He slammed down the phone. Henderson gently replaced the receiver and stepped numbly out of the box.

  ‘How was it?’

  He screwed up his eyes. ‘Pretty bad. He’s just fired me.’

  ‘My God! But it’s not your fault.’

  ‘Oh, he’ll come round. I hope. Just a bit steamed up at the moment.’

  He was surprised at his comparative equanimity—until he realized it was false and that in reality he was in mild shock. Beeby had been beside himself, mad. Very badly let down, he had said, very, very, very disappointed. Henderson had never heard him speak with such icy purpose, not like his usual self at all.

  They went over to the car. Sereno and Gint were in the front, Shanda crying softly in the back. Henderson slid in beside her. Cora liked to be next to a window so she could smoke.

  ‘A very moving service,’ Gint said softly, craning round.

  Henderson patted Shanda’s shoulder and said, ‘There, there.’

  They drove back to the Gage mansion in silence. Henderson suddenly felt oddly calm. Everything had gone so wrong that, for the first time in ages, he experienced some sort of certainty about the future. When all hopes are dashed, life becomes simply a matter of getting through the hours and days, he reasoned. With no ambitions or aspirations, a banal and docile survival is all that is required. Melissa outraged, Irene estranged, the pictures gone, jobless…all the various enterprises and schemes that had dominated his waking moments for the last few weeks were no more. Time stretched ahead for him empty and unalluring.

  He would have to start again, that was all, fill up the next three decades or so with new ploys and distractions. But he would lower his sights somewhat: no grandiose or pretentious notions about ‘change’ or ‘finding himself’. A return to England was the first priority: lowered sights were more at home there. He’d reclaim his Baron’s Court flat from his niece and her friends and, as for work, his pulse didn’t exactly quicken at the prospect, perhaps take up that promised commission on the Odilon Redon book…

  Back at the Gage mansion he found Bryant packing her suitcases.

  ‘Good girl,’ Henderson said. ‘We’ll be off first thing tomorrow.’

  ‘You will. We won’t.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m going away with Duane, to Kansas.’

  ‘Kansas? Why Kansas?’

  ‘Girls can get married at twelve there.’

  ‘You’re joking!’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But that’s disgusting. Obscene.’

  Bryant explained that now Loomis Gage was dead and Freeborn was the new head of the household, Duane didn’t think he could stay around much longer, as he and Freeborn hated each other. So they were going to Kansas, where they could get married without delay.

  Henderson took in this new setback with the phlegmatic patience of the consistently thwarted. He reminded Bryant of her age and Duane’s, and the likely reaction of her mother.

  ‘I’ll take care of Mom,’ she said defiantly. ‘It’s not your responsibility. If I want to do something you can’t stop me and neither can she.’

  Henderson looked at her. She had changed in the brief time they had spent together. No longer a wilful, spoilt adolescent, she had turned into a wilful, spoilt adult. He was suddenly convinced too that she and Duane had slept together. He found this very depressing.

  ‘Bryant, seriously…Duane?’

  ‘Do you know him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘There you are.’

  In actual fact, he was on the point of giving them his blessing; he felt terminal exhaustion loud at his back, hurrying near. Bryant took a soft-pack from her jeans pocket and lit a cigarette.

  ‘If you knew Duane you’d feel different,’ she said wistfully. ‘He’s a sweet lovely person. Very kind, very gentle.’ She exhaled and looked dreamily at the smoke billow and disperse.

  ‘Where is he, by the way?’

  ‘He’s getting your car. And buying our tickets.’

  ‘At last.’

  He stood up. No, this was all wrong. This wasn’t going to happen. He felt a sudden urge and strong determination to thwart Bryant’s projected nuptials. Why? he wondered…To curry favour with Melissa? Possibly, although that seemed something of a lost cause. To prevent a young girl ruining her life? That sounded altruistic and noble enough but if he were honest he didn’t care that much about what Bryant did with her life. No, he reflected, he had to stop the rot, that was all—and soon. The answer had something to do with not bending, not succumbing to the endless massive flow of events and phenomena. He’d been powerless to resist the current that swept him along, however fiercely he battled.

  Perhaps a passionless, disinterested attempt at deflecting someone else’s might have more success.

  ‘Well,’ he said, stirrings of an idea beginning to shift around in his brain. ‘It’s your life, and you can do what you want, as they say.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  Henderson packed his small case with his few possessions then went in search of Cora to tell her he would be leaving the next day. She was sitting in her room looking out over the wild garden. There were no lights on but a pink glow from the evening sun cast gauzy, kindly gleams over her room and its shabby furniture.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘that it’s been such a bad time for you. I hope you get your job back.’

  ‘Who knows? Maybe it was the wrong job?’ He smiled thinly. ‘I don’t think I’m really suited to this place.’ He gave her a brief resume of his past fond ambitions, of his conviction that everything was going to change for the better once he arrived in America.

  ‘How very sad for you,’ sKe said without a trace of mockery. ‘Losing your hopes—that’s much worse than losing the paintings.’

  He found her sincerity oddly disturbing. He didn’t know what to say. ‘What will you do?’ he asked. ‘Go back to medical school?’

  ‘Don’t worry about me. I’ve got plenty to do. But what about you?’

  He sketched out, with flimsy enthusiasm, his return to London, the flat, the book on Odilon Redon, growing steadily more downcast as he did so.

  ‘What about your Dr Dubrovnik?’

  ‘I think those hopes foundered in the atrium lake.’

  ‘Poor Henderson,’ she said. ‘We haven’t treated you very kindly in this country, have we?’

  ‘Could have gone better, I suppose.’

  She took off her dark glasses and smiled ruefully at him. ‘I am sorry about the pictures. Daddy left everything to Freeborn—the pictures, the house, what’s left of the money—I don’t need to see the will. He was a firm believer in primogeniture—very English of him.’

  Henderson shrugged. In the evening light her sallow skin had turned the colour of a tea rose. He wondered if he should try and kiss her again. But then he further wondered why, given his pa
st record, he should still wish to unleash more troubles upon himself. But his reluctance wasn’t due to prudence, he realized: it was that famous reserve asserting itself again. Later, he’d regret not trying, he knew. That was the great feature about reserve: it walked hand in hand with regret; left you sadder but no wiser. You never knew what might have been.

  He stood up. ‘I’ll be making an early start…’ He held out his hand.

  Cora shook it with facetious solemnity. ‘Jolly good luck and all that,’ she said.

  He smiled foolishly, looking a fool again. Perhaps he should have kissed her, after all…he felt a vast impotence, and tears of self-pity stung his eyeballs. He edged crab-like to the door, gave a resigned but reassuring grin and left her room.

  That evening Henderson and Bryant sat alone in the sitting room. Cora remained upstairs, Beckman was out somewhere and Duane had not returned. The absence of Duane—and necessarily the absence of his car—was something of a nuisance but otherwise the conditions suited his plan perfectly.

  A red-eyed, sniffling Alma-May provided them with a supper of pulse stew and cinnamon pear bake and they watched an hour or two of TV.

  ‘And where is Duane?’ Henderson asked casually, about half past ten.

  ‘He’ll be back,’ Bryant said. ‘If not tonight, tomorrow morning. He said he had a few things to finish up before we left. Said they were important too—he might take some time.’

  For an instant Henderson wondered if Duane himself were having second thoughts about a lifetime with Bryant, but she seemed unperturbed by his not returning. Still, he had to press on with his own scheme. He couldn’t assume Bryant would be conveniently abandoned.