by Louisa Young
He was giving me a sideways look as we came round Shepherd’s Bush roundabout. ‘Yes, I remember that too,’ he said.
I hadn’t slept with a man since before the accident, the death, the birth. I don’t know why. A thousand reasons, each one good enough but no reason at all. Harry knew me. Harry had always known me. Perhaps it would be best under the circumstances not to think about what Harry had always known, and always known how to do. Specially with that look on his face.
‘Why haven’t we got the roof down?’ I demanded suddenly.
‘Do you want it down?’ he said. ‘I thought you wouldn’t have.’ He doesn’t know me at all. Phew. ‘Girls don’t, mostly. They say it spoils their hair.’
‘You’ve been with the wrong kind of girl, Harry.’ It popped out before I could stop it. So much for trying to change the subject.
‘Come on,’ I said, ‘pull in and we’ll do it now.’
He started laughing. So did I.
‘No no no,’ I said. ‘Stop it. Stop it.’
‘I didn’t start it,’ he said, pulling in to the kerb, ‘but if you like …’ and he lunged towards me. He was half mocking, but if I had liked … I jumped out of the car and started fiddling with levers under the roof. But the roof was completely new; it didn’t work the way the old one had (not that ‘work’ was quite what the old one had ever done).
‘Here, let me,’ he said. ‘Angeline and Harry by the side of the road, trying to get a vehicle to do something. Timeless, isn’t it.’
‘Where are we going, anyway?’ I said.
‘To South Ken, to see Eddie.’
‘Should have gone down by Earl’s Court,’ I said. Eddie, I thought. Already. Steady. Oh, for God’s sake.
OK, good. Going to see Eddie. That’s what we wanted, that’s good. A little sooner than expected, but – no, it’s good. Harry’s partner. Criminal. Harry is a criminal. Shit.
He might not be. Oh, please. A man’s partner is a criminal, a man is a criminal. I don’t even know what kind of criminal Eddie is. I know nothing. I’m going to a criminal’s house with a criminal in a criminal car and … What kind of criminals are they? Well they’re not burglars, are they. Not muggers. Gangsters, I suppose. Drugs, probably. Vice. Stolen goods. Bank robbers. Fraud. Forgers. Pelham Crescent! Successful, that’s what kind.
Actually it might be worth finding out.
I have no idea what I am meant to do. Chum up.
Lie.
SEVEN
Eddie’s House
Eddie Bates’s house was only about eighteen times flasher than Harry’s showroom. South Kensington is truly a salubrious area. No English people live there at all, except, evidently, Eddie. No one is rich enough.
Oh, the rising layers of Bates’s white stucco, the gleam – achievable only by generations of devoted care and regular repainting – of the black railings rising from the smoothly laid York stone pavement. Oh, the clean wide stone steps leading up to the sober black door, with its polished knocker, forbidding weight, and tight little smile of a polished brass letterbox. Oh, the little round-headed bay-trees in their slatted cedar-wood jardinieres. The whole thing looked steam-cleaned. I hadn’t seen anything so clean since I first saw Lily in her fishtank-cot at the hospital.
And, oh, the blank eyes of the oriental girl in an apron who admitted our grubby everyday selves.
I thought criminals were meant to be vulgar, but this place was straight out of Interiors. The parquet was just so, and strewn with Persian rugs. The furniture was more Sotheby’s than World of Leather. The flowers looked as if they were delivered fresh every morning from the Conran shop just across the road by a beautiful virgin dressed in white lawn woven by nuns. The air was rarefied, and the level of domestic hygiene preternatural. Curiously, it all looked like a very upmarket version of my own taste, which runs to kelims, stripped floorboards, and bunches of daffodils from the market.
‘Jesus, Harry!’ I exclaimed. ‘You don’t get this from used cars, surely.’
‘Eddie’s into all kinds of business,’ said Harry. I bet, I thought.
‘Come, please,’ said the girl, and disappeared, leaving us in what I assumed to be the sitting room – no, the drawing room. I supposed the Chagall was original. And what looked like a Degas. Harry flung himself on to a chaise-longue. I hovered before selecting a little blue and gold damask item as the one least likely to be sullied by my quotidian bum.
‘And slaves too,’ I murmured, watching the girl go.
‘Angeline,’ said Harry reprovingly. Oh, Lord, I suppose it’s bugged. I’d bug my own drawing room if I were a millionaire gangster.
And in he came. Eddie Bates. Charming man. Grey-haired, fine-profiled, twinkly-eyed, late fifties or so. Shakespearean actor of the old school type. Looked sort of familiar, as types do. Looked actually as if he had adopted the type by deed poll. Wonderful voice. ‘Harry, m’boy’, that kind of thing.
‘Eddie, this is Evangeline Gower.’ My full name, no less. Formal.
‘Hello,’ I said, jumping up, smiling, putting out my hand.
‘Evangeline,’ said Eddie Bates.
Now I knew why my mother had chosen it: for this moment. For Eddie Bates to say it. Nobody had ever done justice to my name before.
Charmed, he was charmed. I was charmed. How charming. Glass of sherry. Why, yes! He looked at me with as-it-were pleased astonishment. How wonderful of Harry to have produced me. Charming!
Then I was to excuse them for a moment, and they slipped off together to do whatever it was they had to do, and I was left to ponder whether the shocked look on the Chagall mermaid’s face was because she disapproved of the Degas dancer showing her legs like that, and to wonder whether I was meant to follow them and listen at the keyhole.
No. But still, better things to ponder. Like … um … the layout of the house. The number of staff. The phone number. The contents of the drawers in the little bureau over in the corner. The nearest exit. The distance of the drop from the window to the pavement – just in case, you know.
I opened one drawer of the bureau, heart spinning. A duster. And another. A little black gun lay snugly on a velvet scarf. I closed the drawer again and wiped the handle with my sleeve. Felt sick. Maybe he has invisible security cameras to match the bugs. Maybe that’s why the mermaid is looking at me funnily. If I go to find a bathroom to throw up they’ll think I’m snooping. I am snooping. I bolted the sherry and sat down.
The maid slipped back in to the room.
‘Oh, is there a bathroom I could use?’ I said brightly.
She looked a query with her eyebrows.
‘Bathroom,’ I said. ‘Lavatory. Loo. Cloakroom. Powder room? Where you keep the euphemisms?’ I hoped he had more articulate staff for when he gave parties. ‘Toilet?’ I said finally, giving up the prejudices of my education. It was evidently one of her three words.
She led me out into the hall, up a staircase that would have done Vivien Leigh proud, and chivvied me into a bathroom not much bigger than my flat, though much warmer. Here, I was glad to see, some of my prejudices were confirmed. Shag pile to wade through, and gold taps in the shape of dolphins. I was particularly pleased with the triangular bath with Jacuzzi attachments, and the fridge beside it. Locking the door, I washed the fear off my face with cold water, and felt in the loo cistern for little polythene packets of drugs. Oh, I’ve seen The Sweeney, I know what goes on. There was nothing. Nothing in the fridge, either, unless you count the champagne and the second little black gun.
‘He must be expecting an emergency,’ I thought, and sat on the loo. ‘I suppose there’s one in every room, just in case.’ I wasn’t reassured. I tried a minute or two of yoga breathing (close your eyes, breathe in to the count of four, hold for two, out to the count of eight, concentrate on your third eye from within), and a bit more cold water, then ambled downstairs again, looking out for snub black barrels poking out from behind the turn-of-the-century masterpieces on the walls. I could not see how being here increased m
y good character and suitability as a responsible parent staking a claim on her parental responsibility. But between my sense of the ridiculousness of the situation and the taint of fear, I found myself amused. Actually, I was enjoying it.
Harry and Eddie were waiting for me in the hall. A few ‘ah, there you are’s and a suggestion we stay for lunch. I murmured about Lily, picking up, that sort of thing.
‘Who and what is Lily?’ asked Eddie. By his demeanour, you would have thought that nothing to do with me was too minor for his attention.
I didn’t want to tell him. It seemed bad luck to mention her in this house. ‘My child,’ I murmured, and started trying to talk about Chagall.
‘Little girl! Lovely!’ he expounded, before telling me that he loved children, they so brighten life, don’t they, make you realize what it’s all about, what it’s all for. I was to get a babysitter, that’s the thing isn’t it, and come for dinner one day.
‘In fact,’ he said, looking bright-eyed, ‘come tonight!’ It sounded as if this were the best idea he’d ever had. ‘Harry, bring this charming gel to dinner,’ he said. Harry simpered, and that was it.
‘And how much did he pay for you,’ I murmured to Harry on the doorstep.
‘More than you could possibly imagine in your wildest dreams!’ he grinned. ‘And he’s not paid it off yet.’
‘Jesus, Harry, what is that guy?’ I felt it only realistic to be frank. ‘And what is he to you?’
‘He’s a very successful businessman, who set me up financially to set up my business, from which he derives a great deal of pleasure and enough profit to make it worth his while. Sometimes I feel like his personal mechanic, but more often I just pass it off that he’s my patron. He loves the cars. Borrows them whenever he wants. Doesn’t have to be bothered with owning them. Can’t abide to have things sitting around not earning. It’s simple enough.’
We climbed into the Pontiac.
‘I’ll drop you off,’ he said, forgetting that we were going to have lunch. ‘And I’ll pick you up. Can you get a babysitter? You could borrow Jean from the showroom if you want.’ Oh, so you own people too? I didn’t explain that a child generally likes at least to have been introduced to its babysitter. The niceties of courtesy to children seemed a little small under the circumstances. Small, but comforting. I pictured Brigid and Lily reading Little Rabbit Foo Foo to each other, tucked up on the sofa. It nicely negated images of little black guns.
As I stepped out of the Pontiac in Shepherds Bush I realized why Eddie had looked familiar. He was the man who had set fire to the tablecloth.
EIGHT
Dinner with Eddie
When I got in I called Cooper.
‘Ah, yes,’ he said non-committally. ‘I’ll call you back.’ God knows what all that was about. I think he just liked to be mysterious. Who would he be hiding from in his own office?
He called back. I told him everything that had happened, except that I was going back that evening. I wasn’t sure that I was, for one thing.
He was very pleased with developments.
‘Is that it then?’ I said hopefully.
‘Oh, no, dear, no,’ he crooned. ‘No no no.’ I got the message. ‘Now when will you be seeing the young man again?’
‘Whenever I like,’ I said.
‘And the older man?’
I paused. ‘Well, I could, I suppose.’
‘Oh, yes, you must. As soon as possible without causing alarm. You must visit him again, I should think, don’t you? And pick something up for me while you’re there?’ His perkiness was almost unbearable.
‘You didn’t say anything about that.’
‘I said await further instructions, I seem to remember. So here they are. In order to help put some naughty men where they belong, just get me the diary and the address book, would you, love? Both black leather, to my belief. If you could have a look at the computer, so much the better. Any files of names and addresses. Take a spare disc or two. He uses an IBM, I assume you’re literate. I’ll get a couple of discs round to you, why not. And keep your ears open, and your mouth shut, and that will probably be it.’
I should have known. He’s blackmailing me and there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m in. I’m tarnished. If people give you shit you end up covered in it. There’s nothing I can do about it.
‘Why me, Ben?’ I asked tiredly.
‘Because you’re there, Angie. It’s only a little thing.’
I hate being called Angie.
*
Funnily enough it was Harry that I wanted to talk to about it all. The emotional urge came through nanoseconds before brain said, ‘No, actually. Harry’s a criminal, remember? He’s the enemy. Remember?’
So I called Neil, to do a bit of blackmail of my own. It was all his fault. If he hadn’t jumped out of the car like a self-important nincompoop I would never have … and none of this would have happened. And I’d only have Jim to worry about. Neil’s secretary told me he was due back tomorrow.
So I rang Fergus Droyle. Fergus is a funny creature. He’s been a crime reporter for a million years and he thinks he’s a war correspondent. Drinks too much, keeps getting divorced, moons around regretting things all the time, mostly things he never had in the first place. Can’t get over the terrible things he’s seen in his life.
We met under false pretences. A curious situation exists whereby holiday companies and national tourist boards offer free holidays to newspapers and magazines, in the hope – not the understanding, mind you – that a flattering article will be the result. A women’s magazine decided that one of these trips – to Algeria – would be a great way to get me to Algeria for nothing so that I could visit the Ouled Nail and write a searing reportage on how they live now; Fergus’s paper decided that it would be a great way to get him to Algeria to do a bit of legwork on a drug connection he thought he had spotted. In fact we were both corralled with eight other journalists (well, six journalists, an editor’s nephew and a travel editor’s secretary who was owed a treat having been passed over for promotion) for a week in a luxurious hotel. We were not let out of sight, and force-fed beer and camel-rides. We had a lovely time. Fergus tried to get off with each female in the party in turn, and kept muttering, ‘Fair as these foreign hills may be, they are nay so fair as hame’; I gave him some very basic Arabic lessons (everything I knew) and we drank a lot and got sunburn. It was hard to believe that I was in the same country as the one I had passed through eight years before. Well, I wasn’t, I suppose. I was in third-world holiday land. It’s great if you ignore absolutely everything you know about reality.
‘Droyle, crime desk,’ he said, importantly, as he answered the phone.
‘Fergus!’ I cried, pleased as ever to hear the mutter of machines and office life on the line in the background, and to know I was not part of it. All the same, you have to slip into the brusque argot, otherwise they think you have nothing to do with your time, and despise you. ‘Angeline. Got two minutes?’
‘For you? Don’t make me laugh. Just going into conference, though. What is it?’
‘Who’s Eddie Bates?’
A silence.
‘Why?’
Oh, damn. Why indeed. I wished I’d thought of something. So I did, quickly.
‘Friend of mine’s planning a deal with him.’
‘Why you asking me?’
‘Oh, I thought you knew him, or about him. You mentioned him to me one time. I just wanted to check what it was.’
‘Did I? I doubt it.’
‘Oh, well … but you do know him?’
‘If I knew anything worth knowing about Eddie Bates, I wouldn’t be doing this crap job, that’s for sure. That’s the whole point of him. Nobody knows.’
‘But everybody must know something, otherwise they wouldn’t know there was anything not to know.’
‘Exactly,’ he said.
‘So what is it you all know? Because I don’t.’
‘We all know he’s a villain, Ange.
So you tell your friend, from me, that unless he’s that way inclined himself, and presumably he’s not or he’d know anyway, not to have anything to do with him.’
‘What kind of villain?’
Fergus said he had to go into conference now, and if I liked he’d call me later. I said yes please, this afternoon, please.
*
Then I went and got Lily from nursery, and we watched The Snowman twice in a row even though it was broad sunny daylight, and ate fish fingers with mayonnaise and gherkins. Then we went round to Brigid’s and said could she come over that night. Sure, she said, Maireadh was staying and she could mind Caitlin and the boys (Anthony, Michael and Christopher, three little hooligans dressed always in the most beautifully hand-knitted jumpers from all their devoted aunts in Fermoy, County Cork). Where are you going, she wanted to know. Dinner with Harry, I told her.
‘Harry the old boyfriend?’ she said, and started to get excited about my marriage prospects. God bless her. Whenever I start trying to fix her up – usually with Liam, who runs the snooker club on the corner where Brigid does the bar some nights – she swears blind that there’s nothing a man could ever do for her beyond take her to the movies and buy her a glass of Dubonnet. That’s what she drinks. Dubonnet. ‘A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle,’ she says, which for some reason sounds hysterical in her accent, with her pictures of the Pope in every room. ‘The Pope’s a pishogue,’ she says, ‘but I’ve a lot of respect for pishogues.’ And what the hell is a pishogue. It’s a superstition.
‘Harry’s handsome,’ said Lily.
‘Is he now,’ said Brigid. ‘Well, so much the luckier for Angeline.’
Then we went to the park and ate ice-cream and flapjacks. Lily told me there was a boy in her school called Jack and she called him Flapjack. And that Flapjack called Jennifer Jennyfish. And if a fish went on holiday how could you tell?