The Man Whose Dream Came True

by Julian Symons

  At the interval they went to the bar. ‘Filthy,’ O’Grady said as he downed a large whisky. ‘A desecration of the human body. In the old country we’d not permit it.’

  ‘You live in Ireland?’ Tony asked.

  O’Grady glared at him. ‘I live in Leeds. I cannot watch another moment of this filthy performance.’

  Widgey gathered mouldering fur around her. ‘There’s a lot of tit if you like that. I’m a bit old for it myself.’

  They ate fish and chips and visited three pubs on the way back, then took a short cut through an alley. O’Grady had become melancholy in the last pub and was singing ‘The Minstrel Boy’. At the end of the alley a man leaned against the wall. As they walked slowly and uncertainly along their footsteps sounded curiously speedy.

  There were too many footsteps. Tony’s hand touched the rough brick wall beside him and found no reassurance in it. He was afraid to turn round.

  ‘And his harp he’s left behind him,’ O’Grady wailed. Then two men were with them, standing between Tony and his companions. One of them spoke to Widgey in a low polite voice.

  ‘You go on ahead. We just want a couple of words with our friend here.’

  Widgey was not alarmed. In the darkness of the alley her face was a white blur. She began to move away, and O’Grady with her. Tony felt one of the men pushing against him, pressing him back hard against the wall. He saw, or thought he saw, the gleam of steel. He cried out. O’Grady stopped singing.

  He could not have said afterwards just what happened in the next minute. O’Grady’s body was launched towards them, Widgey screamed, he cried out again himself, there was a frenzied flurrying and mixing of bodies like that of fish in a pool after bait. Then one of the men was on the ground and the other was running back down the alley. O’Grady was furiously kicking the man on the ground and cursing at him. He stopped when Widgey pulled at his arm. The man slowly got to his feet and limped away.

  Tony haltingly thanked O’Grady, who was immensely cheerful.

  ‘Think nothing of it, I enjoy a scrap. I bruised my knuckle on him.’ He showed a bloody fist.

  ‘They didn’t hurt you? They had knives.’

  ‘Knives? Not they. Ah, they were just a couple of toughs. We don’t have that type in the old country, I can tell you that. I could do with a drink.’

  Tony bought them all double brandies in a pub. Widgey said nothing at the time, but after O’Grady had gone upstairs she took Tony into the parlour, rolled a cigarette, stuck it in her mouth and puffed smoke at him.

  ‘I hate to say it but you’ll have to go.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘It’s about the money, isn’t it? The hundred pounds.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You can have it. Tomorrow. But you’ll have to go. I’ve got this place to run, they’ll be round here.’

  Something about the way she spoke, combined with her refusal to look at him, made him cry out, calling simply her name.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I’ll go away. But I can come back, can’t I?’

  ‘If you want.’

  ‘Widgey, don’t–’ He could not say what he felt about the severance of this tie with the past and his childhood. ‘I can manage without the money, I’ve got enough.’

  ‘Don’t be a fool.’

  ‘It’s true.’

  ‘You wanted it yesterday.’

  ‘I can raise the money. If I have to. But I don’t want to borrow from you.’

  ‘Please yourself. Let’s have a cuppa.’ She moved to put the kettle on the gas ring. ‘I still want you out, though. By the weekend. It’s best for you too.’

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘It’s finished,’ Jenny said. She was alone and she had taken him straight into the drawing-room.

  ‘Finished?’

  ‘Eversley’s made up his mind to go away. On Saturday.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘He’s talking about South America, but he doesn’t really tell me. I shall be lucky if I get a couple of cards.’

  ‘And he doesn’t want me to go on? I told him yesterday, I could easily do some research.’

  ‘He doesn’t like you, Tony. I think he knows.’

  ‘But then–’ He wanted to say that if Foster suspected her of carrying on an affair it would be natural for him to take her with him, but he could not phrase the words. What she said next did something to answer this unasked question.

  ‘I told you, he’s a strange man. When something like this happens, seriously I mean, he has to go away. Alone. He gives it time to burn itself out as he calls it. Then he sends me a card saying where he is, and if I want to I can join him. Otherwise he sends another card to say when he’s coming back.’

  He seized on the single element that was important to him. ‘It’s as I said, it’s happened before.’

  ‘You don’t think I could live with Eversley without there being someone else?’ And again in response to the question he could not ask about why she stayed with him she went on coolly, ‘He has the money.’

  There was something remote about her, something unreal in the whole situation that frustrated and infuriated him. The barrier between them did not fall when he stepped forward and took her unyielding body into his arms, telling her that he loved her. The words also sounded unreal to him, although he knew that they were true. The next words came more easily. ‘I have to be with you, I can’t leave you.’

  ‘I want that too.’

  ‘But the others. You felt that about the others.’

  ‘They were nothing.’ She moved out of his arms. ‘Don’t make a scene, I hate them. Let’s have some whisky.’ While she was pouring it she looked at him with the wariness of one animal watching another. ‘Eversley doesn’t have to come back.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He doesn’t have to go.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ He knew that something terrible was being proposed to him, but he did not know what it was, and he wanted her to tell him; she did not do this. Instead, sipping her whisky like a cat and looking at him over the rim of the glass, she told him things that taken by themselves did not seem significant, appeared almost to be said at random. She and Eversley had a joint account at the bank, did he know that (the question was rhetorical, for of course he didn’t), but there was not a lot of money in it, not more than a few hundred pounds. But supposing, just supposing, that Eversley decided to settle in somewhere like – oh, say Venezuela or Costa Rica – and supposing he didn’t come back, and that he liked South America so much that he decided to settle there for good, then naturally he’d have his securities transferred to a bank out there, wasn’t that so? And Eversley was rich, his securities would last for a long time, you could say for ever.

  The sun shone through the windows, yet he felt cold. The whisky tasted bitter. He had to say again that he didn’t under-stand what she meant.

  ‘Look.’ She went out of the room, returned with a sheet of writing paper headed Villa Majorca. ‘Don’t touch,’ she said. The paper was blank except for the signature at the bottom, ‘Eversley Foster.’ ‘I asked him to sign it because I wanted to write to the telephone people about a new extension. But it could be used for typing a letter to the bank, he’s signed it. I told you, he’s a fool.’

  ‘But what can we do with it, how does it help?’

  ‘First we copy this signature until we’re perfect at writing it. I mean perfect. And don’t forget we’d only have to convince a bank in Venezuela.’

  ‘I suppose that might be possible.’ He spoke cautiously, he did not want her to know of his previous experience with signatures. She gave him a smile that raised her upper lip off her teeth. ‘But we couldn’t keep it up, we’d be found out. One day the bank would ask to see him.’

  ‘Of course. And they would see him. You’d be Eversley.’

  ‘But how would–’

  She talked quickly, like somebody who has rehearsed an argument many times. ‘You go out there as you
rself, right? You just fly abroad on a trip. Out in Caracas we get a passport that makes you Eversley.’

  He began to expostulate. ‘You can’t get a passport just like that.’

  ‘I know somebody out there,’ she said so brusquely that he did not like to ask more questions. ‘And he has contacts. It’s not difficult, just a matter of money. Either we buy a passport or we use Eversley’s and get the picture and the description changed. And then you’re Eversley. He doesn’t have any near relatives or close friends, you see the sort of life he leads. And then there’s something special about Venezuela – or Costa Rica or Honduras or Dominica, it doesn’t matter which. They don’t have any extradition treaty with Britain. I fancy Venezuela though, from what I’ve read about it Caracas is a lovely city.’

  ‘You’ve worked all this out. You’ve planned it. For a long time.’ She gave him again that feline smile. ‘You’ve talked about it to other people.’

  ‘One.’

  ‘He was your lover?’

  ‘He was frightened.’ Her thin shoulders shrugged under her dress.

  He felt a tremor beginning in his hands and legs, and put down his glass on a table. She got up and turned away from him. Her profile seemed to him so beautiful that it took away his breath. The tremor stopped.

  ‘I’m not frightened. Nothing frightens me.’

  ‘I love you.’ He repeated the words almost angrily, as though they were some kind of insurance against disaster.

  ‘It’s not a word I use.’ The coldness and rigidity of her features frightened him. ‘I told you, I want to be with you.’

  ‘But supposing in a few months–’ He could not complete the sentence.

  ‘I didn’t want to be with you. You’d be Eversley Foster, you’d be signing the cheques.’

  He closed his eyes and instantly had an image of his body descending silently down an endless tunnel, twisting from side to side, bruised and torn by the speed of a descent which he was powerless to check. There was a roaring in his ears which might have been the sound of water. He thought that he was going to faint. He opened his eyes again and blinked to find himself still in the room. ‘I can’t bear violence.’

  ‘There won’t be any violence.’ She went on, again talking with compulsive eagerness. ‘I told you Eversley has a weak heart, he takes capsules to speed it up. If I slip three of them into a drink he won’t wake up. I’ll be responsible for all that. If it worries you. I won’t need any help from you until afterwards.’

  ‘Afterwards?’

  ‘I said he was going away. And I told you he bought me a motor launch.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’ll have to help me get him into it.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘A sea burial. By the time he turns up he’ll be unrecognisable. And anyway we shall be in Venezuela.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You mean you don’t trust me. We want the same thing, you must see that.’

  What he wanted – but how could he say this to her? – was the ideal Jenny, tender and loving, not the real woman who cloaked hard shrewdness behind an impassive beauty. As though she understood this she gave the ideal Jenny’s quick gentle laugh. ‘I trust you, anyway. You’ve got a passport?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why don’t you fly out to Caracas on Saturday and wait for me there. I shan’t be able to come for – oh, perhaps a couple of weeks. They couldn’t extradite you, you’d be safe anyway.’ It seemed only proper to ask about her safety. She came close to him and gripped his arm. ‘I don’t want to be safe, that’s the difference between us. If you’re going to buy a ticket you’ll want some money. The single fare is a hundred and forty pounds.’ He watched in amazement as she opened her handbag, took out a thick envelope and handed it to him. He put it on the table between them.

  ‘You feel very sure of me.’

  ‘I’m direct, you see,’ she said as if she were explaining a mathematical problem to a not very bright student. ‘I know what I want and what you want, and they both amount to the same thing. And I know what you’re like.’

  ‘I wonder if you do.’

  ‘If something’s made easy you’ll do it as long as you feel you don’t have the responsibility, isn’t that right?’ He could not answer. ‘I’m making it easy. Have you got money to live on until I fly out to join you?’ He shook his head. ‘I’ll draw another two hundred and fifty from the bank. You see, this trust is a one-way operation. But you don’t get the rest of the money until you show me the air ticket.’

  Everything she said humiliated him. ‘I wouldn’t steal money from you.’

  ‘But you have stolen money, isn’t that right?’

  ‘Whatever I’ve done–’ He stopped, and began again. ‘Those links. I found out what they’re worth, but I wouldn’t sell them.’

  ‘Oh, my sweet Tony, you priced them, did you? Don’t worry, I don’t mind, I wouldn’t mind if you’d sold them. Being with someone like you makes it more exciting. I knew what you were like, I could tell from the first.’ Her eyes sparkled as they did while making love.

  ‘Today is Thursday. There’s no time.’ It was impossible, surely, that on Saturday night or Sunday morning he should be in Venezuela.

  ‘Of course there is. You can go up to London this afternoon and buy the ticket.’

  ‘And he’s going away on Saturday?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘I can’t come here tomorrow morning. To see him. I couldn’t do it.

  ‘No, I suppose you couldn’t,’ she said with no hint of criticism. ‘He wouldn’t want to see you anyway. I’ll tell him I’ve paid you off. He’d be pleased about that. Then come on Friday night.’

  ‘Friday night?’

  ‘Ten o’clock. I’ll be ready by then.’ He did not ask what she meant. ‘Come to the back. I can’t see it would matter much, but try to make sure you’re not seen.’

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘Saturday,’ the girl in the travel agency said, and tapped her pad with a pencil. ‘BOAC flies Tuesdays and Thursdays, Air France on Sundays. Now, let me see.’ She delved into time tables and came up with a bright smile. ‘You can either fly Iberia or KLM, both from London Airport. Iberia leaves at eleven-fifty Saturday morning by Caravelle, arrive in Madrid fifteen o five, then you have a long stop over in Madrid, leave there o one o five Sunday morning in a Boeing, reach Caracas o seven hundred hours. KLM might suit you better. Depart London o eight one o hours Saturday morning in a DC 8, call at Amsterdam, Zurich, Lisbon, reach Caracas twenty-two twenty-five hours Saturday evening. Depends if you mind getting up early on Saturday morning or if you’d sooner stop over half a day in Madrid.’

  ‘I’ll take the KLM. As Jenny had said, there should be no danger, but the sooner he was out of the country on Saturday morning the better.

  ‘You want to make a booking now? Single, not return? Single is a hundred and forty pounds, return can be a little cheaper. Single, right.’ She got busy on the telephone, returned smiling and began to fill in a form. ‘Business trip? Are you staying long?’

  ‘Yes, it’s business, and I’m not sure how long I’ll be there. I may be coming back by boat.’

  ‘Smallpox inoculation is obligatory, yellow fever is not obligatory but advised. No visa necessary.’ He handed over the money, she counted it and gave him the ticket. ‘Have a good trip.’

  Sitting in a café afterwards, he looked at the ticket. He was going to Caracas. In less than seventy-two hours he would be in a city of which he had barely heard, and of which he knew nothing. It is so simple, then, to make your dreams come true. Yet even now he did not believe in what he was doing. It could not possibly be true that on Friday night he would go to the Villa Majorca and help Jenny – he could not frame the words to describe it. And on the following morning was it really possible that he would walk across the tarmac at London Airport, step into the great mechanical bird, and in less than a day step out of it into a new life? He found that he was able to envisage the
new life itself easily enough, the apartment in town with a villa in the hills for the hot season, scarlet bougainvillaea climbing round the terrace where they ate breakfast, orchids and jacaranda trees, continual lovemaking, the pleasure of possessing and being possessed. All this was much clearer to him than what was to happen on Friday and Saturday.

  He spent most of the afternoon finding out about Caracas. ‘At 3,164 feet above sea level, Caracas has one of the world’s best climates. Springlike the year around, the temperature averages 64 degrees with a high of 80 degrees during April, May, September and October… English is spoken everywhere… The city has recently undergone a tremendous transformation. In the eastern part, where peons drove cattle just ten years ago, sophisticated Caracas residents now sip coffee and cocktails in chic sidewalk cafés in the best continental manner…the population of one and a half millions is cosmopolitan, and the faces of Italians, Spanish, Portuguese and North Americans are a familiar sight in the streets.’ Not, he noted, English. As Jenny had said, the chances of recognition by anybody who knew Foster would be very small. And really, the place seemed idyllic. There was nothing about poisonous insects or snakes crawling out of bunches of bananas, only descriptions of the variety of flowering trees and the national birds, turpials, toucans and humming birds, ‘resplendent in every size, colour and variety’. Photographs showed him great white skyscrapers, enormous hotels with curiously-shaped restaurants and swimming pools, eight lane highways leading out to the mountains. Altogether, Caracas seemed as dreamlike as everything else. Caracas, he read elsewhere, was one of the most expensive cities in the world, but was also ‘a city where, if you have money, you can live like a king’. And he would have money, he would live like a king with the queen always by his side.