by Ian Sansom
“Oh god.”
“And save yer prayers. Round the corner and we’re into the home stretch. I’ve the taxi parked just there.”
They walked quickly down Rathkeltair’s notoriously cracked pavements—subject of more than one minor injury claim against the council. The air around them smelled of rain and cat piss and potatoes; somehow Rathkeltair always smelled of potatoes. Rathkeltair was the kind of place that smelled as though someone had always just cooked dinner.
As they rounded the corner there was the ominous sound of running behind them.
“Israel! Israel!” came a voice.
“Ye’ve got company,” said Ted. “Come on. Don’t stop. Don’t turn around. And don’t show ’em yer face.”
They started walking even quicker, and whoever it was started walking quicker also. In heels.
“Israel, wait, wait!”
“I think I know who it is,” Israel to Ted.
“I don’t care who it is.”
“I think it’s Veronica.”
“What?” said Ted.
“Veronica Byrd.”
“Ach. The wee hasky bitch from the Impartial Recorder? I might have guessed.”
Veronica caught them as they reached the cab. She was wearing a red raincoat that looked as though it had recently been poured from a sauce bottle; her blonde hair was swept back into a bun, held in place by a shining tortoiseshell comb; and she wore shoes that would surely have made any kind of reporting difficult.
“Hello, Israel,” she said as Ted lowered the umbrella and went round to open the driver’s side.
“Hello,” said Israel rather shyly.
“I knew it was you!” she said.
“How?”
“Your cords,” she said.
“Ah,” said Israel. “Betrayed by the cords.”
“Indeed,” she said, cocking her head slightly. “So?” she said.
“So?” said Israel.
“Come on,” said Ted, who had opened up the passenger car door.
“How did you get mixed up in this one, Israel?” She spoke in a tone of good-natured reproach, and when she spoke, you noticed her cheekbones—or, at least, Israel noticed her cheekbones. They were reproachful cheekbones.
“Well, I’m not really mixed up in it, to be honest. Whatever this is.”
“Come on!” said Ted. “In.”
“Look, it’s nice to see you, Veronica, but I have to—”
“No, no,” she said, standing in front of the open door. “Don’t be rushing off when we’ve only just said hello.”
“Sorry. I have to.” Israel went to reach round her to get into the car. Veronica pushed him back and shut the car door with her hip.
“We’re old friends, Israel, aren’t we?”
Israel hesitated.
“And I’m sure you could use a friend at the moment, couldn’t you?” she asked.
“He’s got a friend,” said Ted, who had leaned across and opened the passenger door again from the inside. “You!” he said, addressing Israel. “In!” And then, “You!” addressing Veronica. “Run along there.”
“Yeah!” laughed Veronica. “Right. In these shoes? Come on, Israel,” she said, with authoritative boldness. “I’ll buy you a drink.”
“No, thanks,” said Israel. “I don’t drink at lunchtimes.”
“Oh, go on.”
“Into the cab,” said Ted. “Now!”
“Come on,” she said. “You can catch up with Lurch later.”
“In!” said Ted.
“Come on, Israel. Please.” She fixed him with her pale, piercing blue eyes. “Give a girl a break.”
Israel stood and looked at her. He’d always liked her. He liked her because she talked like she was in a film starring Peter Lorre and Edward G. Robinson. And he liked her because she always talked as if the world were in jeopardy and she could alone could somehow sort things out.
“‘Give a girl a break,’” he repeated.
“Yeah. Go on.”
“You!” shouted Ted. “In! Now!”
Israel hesitated. Fatally.
“Ted. I’ll be fine,” he said.
“You’ll be flippin’ eaten alive, ye eejit! Now!”
“Come on, then. I’ll buy you lunch,” said Veronica.
He certainly did need a friend.
“Come on, I think I can help you,” said Veronica. Her voice had always had a slightly breathless quality. And her wide blue eyes—enhanced by colored contact lenses?—and her open, trusting face, and the determined jut of the chin.
“Nice raincoat,” said Israel.
“You auld flatterer!” she said. “Now, are you going to let me buy you lunch, or not?”
“All right,” said Israel, his defenses having been quickly broken down.
“Come on, let’s go,” she said. And she took Israel by the hand and started walking briskly and triumphantly away from Ted’s cab.
“Hey!” said Ted, emerging from the cab. “What are ye doin’?”
“I’m just going to get some lunch here, Ted. OK?” said Israel, shouting back. “I’ll see you later.”
Ted shook his head.
“Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he bellowed.
Veronica glanced behind her and smiled.
“Bye-bye now!” she called. “Don’t wait up!”
“Where are we going then?” said Israel.
“There’s a little bistro I know.”
“A bistro?” said Israel.
“Yes.”
“In Rathkeltair?”
“Yes.”
“You’re kidding?”
“No. Why? Do you have a problem with bistros?”
“No, I have no problem with bistros whatsoever.”
“Good.”
The bistro was just off Main Street, so it was called, naturally, Off Main Street, in case you forgot. Rathkeltair, as a town, was just a cut above Tumdrum, and so the Main Street in Rathkeltair was not merely different in degree to the Main Street of Tumdrum, it was different in kind. And Off Main Street was correspondingly a cut above anything off Main Street in Tumdrum: the menus, for example, weren’t laminated. Israel couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a nonlaminate menu. It was like holding the Torah scrolls. Off Main Street was decorated in a kind of cheap Ikea fantasy of a cosmopolitan loft apartment. There was a lot of exposed brick-work and abstract art. Huge wineglasses. Café-style chairs. Dim lighting. Slightly noirish film score–type music just a little too loud, as though you were in Berlin or The Bourne Ultimatum.
With Gloria, back home in London, Israel used to eat out at least once a week, in cheap Italians or Indians or Chinese restaurants round by where they lived, or Israel would go up and meet Gloria in town and they’d find somewhere different and new and exciting. There was this vegetarian restaurant they liked up round by Old Street, where they served saffron lasagna with pistachio and ginger, and it was all scrubbed wooden tables and body-pierced Australian waitresses. That was a great restaurant. He’d never really enjoyed eating out since he’d been living in Tumdrum: a meal out in Tumdrum invariably came with a side order of chips or champ, and the local chefs and restaurateurs seemed long ago to have abandoned any idea of flavor or texture or indeed portion control, and gone flat-out for bulk. In comparison to eating out in Tumdrum, dining out in Rathkeltair was like walking into a 3-D Michelin restaurant guide. This lunchtime there were half a dozen people already seated, men in suits mostly, and middle-aged women in makeup. Civil servants, probably. On flextime. But they might as well have been Cary Grant and Lauren Bacall as far as Israel was concerned.
He sat there, mesmerized by the nonlaminate menu, which promised crostini, and beet and goat cheese salad, and moules du jour, and red snapper fillet, and ginger-yogurt cheesecake. He ran his fingers over the paper as though checking the weave.
“Wow,” he said. And then, looking at the prices, “Wow,” he said again.
“It’s my treat,” said Veronica.
“On expense
s, then?” said Israel.
“Still my treat,” she said, smiling.
He remembered the very first meal out he and Gloria had ever had. He could see it now, in his mind’s eye, as clear as—if not clearer than—he could see Veronica before him now, placing a finger on her lips and gazing at the menu. It was a Greek restaurant, somewhere around Palmers Green. There was ornamental trelliswork and a big amateur sky-blue mural, and the cutlery glistening, the plates white. They ate vegetable kebabs and drank retsina poured from big copper jugs and pulled faces at the taste, and they held hands. And all to the accompaniment of the theme tune to Zorba the Greek.
“What do you think?” said Veronica.
“It’s OK,” said Israel. “Did you ever see Zorba the Greek?”
“Is that a film?”
“Yeah.”
“No.”
“Oh.”
He and Veronica had never had that much in common.
“This used to be a wine bar,” Veronica was saying. “Back in the nineties.”
“Right.”
“But they’ve really transformed it, haven’t they. I like all these little accents.”
“Accents?” said Israel.
“The little Chinese-lacquer-red bowls and everything.”
“Right,” said Israel. “Yes. Nice.”
“The chef’s from here, but his wife’s Polish,” said Veronica.
“Really?”
“Cosmopolitan, you see. International. I like it because it reminds me of London.”
“Yeah,” said Israel. “Kind of.”
A waiter stood beside them. He was wearing a black silk shirt—always a bad sign in a waiter.
“Would you like some wine with your meal?”
“Why not?” said Israel.
“Red or white?” said Veronica.
“White,” said Israel.
“I thought you drank red?”
“It stains.”
“You’re meant to drink it, Israel, not spill it.”
“We’ll take a bottle of house white,” said Veronica, without consulting further.
“What is the house white?” said Israel.
“It’s a quirky New World wine,” said the waiter.
“What?”
“It’s a Riesling.”
“Hmm. A quirky New World Riesling?”
“Yes.”
“Really? OK. And what have you got that’s French?” asked Israel.
“Since when did you take an interest in wine?” said Veronica.
“I…just…You know. I find there’s a lack of character and vibrancy in a lot of the New Worlds, for my liking. I prefer something with more freshness.”
“OK,” said Veronica. “You’re going to be telling me you can cook and clean next, are you?”
“I like to think I can look after myself,” said Israel. Which was a lie.
“You want to snap him up before someone else does,” said the waiter.
“We’ll see,” said Veronica. “I need to road test him first.”
Israel blushed.
“So?” said the waiter.
Israel was still scanning the wine list.
“Actually, why don’t we go for a Riesling from its spiritual home?” he said.
“Right,” said Veronica. “Sounds fine.”
“We’ll go for the Markus Molitor, then, please.”
“At twenty-nine pounds ninety-five a bottle?” said Veronica, seizing a menu.
“I’m buying the wine,” said Israel.
“Oh, well, in that case.”
“Very good, sir. Madam,” said the waiter, smiling, unconvincingly—“Madam,” spoken with a Northern Irish accent sounding suspiciously like an insult—and walking away.
“I am impressed,” said Veronica. “So, what have you been doing in that coop of yours? Sitting around reading wine encyclopedias?”
“Not exactly. Pearce taught me, actually.”
“Pearce Pyper?”
“Yeah.”
“You have heard, have you?”
“Yes,” said Israel sadly. “I have.”
“I’m meant to be doing the obit later this week. I don’t know where to start.”
Israel laughed.
“What?”
“Where to start with Pearce, that’s a good question.”
“You knew him quite well, didn’t you?” said Veronica.
“Yes,” said Israel. “I do. I mean, I did.”
The waiter reappeared with the wine, Israel approved it—and they raised their glasses.
“Cheers,” said Veronica.
“L’chaim,” said Israel.
“Whatever. Are you ready to order?”
“I might just need a few more minutes,” said Israel.
“Of course,” said the waiter, raising his eyes to heaven and wandering off.
“Anyway,” said Veronica. “You’re looking well.”
“Right,” said Israel.
“Seriously, though,” said Veronica. “Have you been working out?”
“No!” said Israel. “Just—”
“You’re not on a diet, are you?”
“No, not really.”
“Have you been going to the gym?”
“Do I look like I’ve been going to the gym?”
“Yes, actually.”
“And the beard?”
“Yes,” said Israel. “What do you think?”
“I’m not sure about the beard,” she said. “What’s that all about?”
“I’m…cultivating my mind,” said Israel.
“Well,” said Veronica, “that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be cultivating your beard at the same time, does it?”
Israel took the opportunity to draw Veronica’s attention to the venerable history of learned beards, arguing that it was in fact only a recent twentieth-century phenomenon that sophistication should be associated with beardlessness: shaving, he argued, being merely a sign of a male vanity that is directly linked to the West’s military-industrial-puritan complex.
“My brother, Esau, is an hairy man, but I am a smooth man!” he said.
“Whatever,” said Veronica.
There was a silence as they looked at each other.
“This is where you’re supposed to compliment me on how I’m looking,” said Veronica.
“Gosh. Sorry,” said Israel. “I mean, of course you’re looking well.” Veronica looked more than well.
“Well, thank you. We do our best,” she said.
The reason Israel liked Veronica was because she was so candid. She was the sort of person who cut to the chase.
She cut to the chase.
“So do you want to talk business or pleasure first?”
“Erm,” said Israel. “Can we order first?”
“Oh, yes, of course. Silly me.”
“What are you going to have?”
“I can’t decide,” said Israel.
“I’m having the Caesar salad,” said Veronica.
“Oh,” said Israel, slightly disappointed.
“What?”
“Ladies always have Caesar salad.”
“We have to think of our figures.”
“Right.”
“Don’t let that stop you having something else. The steak’s good.”
“I’m vegetarian.”
“Oh, I forgot.” And then, without waiting further for Israel, she called over the waiter and ordered her Caesar salad. Israel, under pressure, went for what looked like the least-worst option—the vegetarian lasagna.
“So, shall we get down to business?” said Veronica.
“Here?” said Israel, who’d been rather buoyed by Veronica’s compliments about his newfound svelte figure. He decided he rather liked it here. He had an unusual sense of ease. Glass of wine in hand. Beautiful woman paying him compliments. He felt dangerously wonderful and alive.
“Not that sort of business, Armstrong,” said Veronica.
“Sorry,” he said.
“What?”
“Do you want to tell me all about it?”
“About what?”
“Israel! About the police investigation into the disappearance of Lyndsay Morris, of course!”
“Well, I don’t know. I don’t really know anything about it. I don’t have anything to do with it, obviously,” said Israel.
“Obviously!” said Veronica, in a way that suggested not so much Israel’s welcome innocence as that he was clearly destined to be only a bit-part player in the theater of life, and so was incapable of being responsible for any action, good or bad.
“Oh god, what’s this music?” Veronica said suddenly.
“I don’t know,” said Israel.
“You do, you do. It’s the Kings of Leon! I love the Kings of Leon.”
Israel felt very much his almost-thirty.
“I saw them at Glastonbury,” said Veronica. “They were fantastic!” She looked Israel in the eye.
“Can I be honest with you, Israel, as a friend?”
“Yes, of course.”
“I need this story,” she said.
“What story?”
“The Lyndsay Morris story.”
“The Lyndsay Morris story? It’s hardly a story, is it? She’s a young girl who’s—”
“Everything’s a story, Israel.”
“Right. Well.”
“And I need your help.”
“Well, I don’t know how I can help, but of course if I can—”
“I need to know everything the police told you.”
“They didn’t tell me anything, really,” said Israel, swirling the wine around in his glass. “Anyway, how have you been? What have you been up to?”
“No, Israel. Concentrate.”
“I am concentrating.” He was concentrating for that moment on her pretty face and her lips.
“I need this story,” she was saying. “I really need this story.”
She suddenly reached down under the table. Israel wondered what was happening. She pulled her handbag up onto her lap. There was a book poking out the top.
“What are you reading?” said Israel.
She pulled out a copy of The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho.
“Oh,” he said, involuntarily.
“What?”
“Paulo Coelho.” He pronounced it “Co-el-you.”
“Is that how you pronounce it?”
“I think so.”
“I love Paulo Coelho.” She pronounced it “Coal-Ho.” “Have you read any?”