She placed the picture frame back on the white table and now I saw it. It showed a handsome boy — a pretty boy — of around sixteen years old. He had a shock of blond hair and the most cynical and supercilious expression I’ve ever seen on the face of one so young.
But the note in Jemma’s voice forgave him all that. ‘You see, I took a certain rail trip, one time. The other half of the ticket was the only guy I ever met whom I didn’t drive away in the first week that I would have married.’
‘But you didn’t?’
‘No, I didn’t. I was too neurotic for him and he quit. Eventually. But not before he’d made me pregnant somewhere between Chicago Illinois and the Rocky Mountains.’
‘Are you sorry?’
‘I’m proud.’ She spoke with difficulty now. That boy you see there was the result. You may think he looks a louse or something but he was a real baby and I loved him ... and dammit I’m going to have a drink!’
I poured — and made it large. This was no time to play God and this woman was desperate. ‘What’s his name?’
‘I’d rather you didn’t know. You’re in Security — remember? — Enough has gone wrong already. By God.’
‘What about the other half of the ticket?’
She gulped her drink on the reply. ‘Nor him either. He has a reputation to protect.’
I demanded: ‘Were you trying to protect it by not marrying him, then?’
She raised her glass, laughed laconically. ‘This, you mean? It’s a theory. Thanks for not just assuming he threw me out. Though that’s what they say, of course. It hurts him, probably more than me, even.’
I said: ‘It sounds to me as though you have an unworthiness complex which is what really ditched you. Why are you telling me all this?’
Her expression hardened. ‘Because now we get back to Vince.’
‘Go on.’
‘Try and stop me. Jesus, I never unloaded so much to anyone. Why do I trust you?’
‘I’m tall and thin.’
‘Stop laughing at poor old Jemma ...’ She took a swig at the drink and went on: ‘At first. Stergen and his chums were not so keen on your set-up as a bed-mate, even though your Lord Dine-ham had the most viable relationship with my fellow countrymen.’ She picked her next words carefully. ‘So someone in your group bribed Vince.’
‘To get the merger through? Is that so unusual?’
‘Not in the least. Sure — you make your crosslinks and get what you want. Only Vince found he couldn’t prevail on Stergen — or his board — with just sales talk. He needed something more. He found what he needed, here in my flat.’ She took another great slug of gin, then smashed the glass against a set of golf clubs that stood, in a schmolzy new bag, by the door. ‘That damn ponce found someone in his group liked boys!’
‘God! Vince did that? — fixed them up?’
‘He sure did. He fixed them up. With my son.’ She looked at me, a quickie that tossed hair gone prematurely grey; and as if anticipating something she thought I was thinking she said: ‘Okay, so he might have gone fairy in the end but did my own lover have to give him a shove?’
I said quietly: ‘You’ve had a rough time.’ I waited for her to collect herself. ‘How far has this thing gone? Do you know?’
She got back her bite. ‘Not yet. There’s quite a little nest of filth gathering, right now, in the delightful surroundings of St Tropez. I’m going down there to break it up.’
I said: ‘I can go straight to Lord Dineham.’
‘Which proves,’ she said, ‘that you are greener than pea soup ... And if you’re planning on beating up Vince then permit me to tell you the facts of life before it’s too late. One of them is that St Trop is stiff with the press, right now. Already they half suspect what could be going on at a certain villa near the bay. The shindig resulting from any ham-dramatics on your part — however well-intentioned — would set the place alight. If I can keep my bastard’s picture out of the papers then I’ll do so no matter what. I’m sorry to deprive you of a scrap. If there’s anyone who can stop Vince, it’s me ... I can blackmail him from here to New Year’s Eve.’
‘Would that do any good? ... Now?’
‘It could stop the merger.’
‘Why do you want to? There are two different issues.’
‘You think they’re separate? ... Listen. It’s not only Vince. I know enough about that set-up — the one your peer of the realm wants so much — to scorch the pants off a baby’s ass. That goes for Stergen, too. And if he meets your man Thorne — and make no mistake, Thorne is brilliant — they’ll put their three heads together and come up with sheer poison. How can it be otherwise? — seeing who’s involved?’
— It had all seemed pretty hysterical. And though as I left her apartment that night I decided to follow up in my own way, I still thought that, in her protective rage for the boy I was to discover so much later was Michael Nobody, she was projecting her hatred in all the wrong directions.
What a waste of an opportunity! I was sick with myself as I crawled back to bed, ready for the next nightmare.
It didn’t happen. It’s always like that.
SEVEN
The mild round of applause, when the leader of the orchestra stepped from the wings into the crisscrossed light patterns, indicated that the audience took for granted the fact that he hadn’t forgotten his violin. The ritual of an orchestra tuning up ... the attentiveness of the tympani chef ceremoniously spicing up his three kingsize cauldrons ... the rustle of the music-scores inspected by cellists sceptical of there being the correct number of pages ... the pumping of trombones and the tickling of a celeste — all these marvellously reliable routines left the packed house unmoved because of what was going on in the back stalls. Necks were craned around in bourgeois disapproval of the psychedelic intruders on the scene. Rude things were said about the discoloration of a social occasion by those who merely came for the music; and postgraduate musicologists wearing slack corduroy jackets, pockets bulging with miniature scores, smiled grimly among themselves with the elaborate tolerance of priests at a cathedral bun fight. It seemed that some Philistines who did not need to follow the dots in order to hear anything had lowered the tone until the vulgarities of cup-final night at Wembley had transformed a reassuringly pompous occasion into a dangerously democratic event.
I couldn’t see Louise; though I took a long look round during an elephantine Rossini overture. It was just as well; nothing about the inane blitherings of William Tell could have accounted for the heartrate which Henry Bleeper would have reported had I suddenly found myself locking eyes with this disturbingly beautiful girl. She had indicated, during last night’s kiss, that we had completed the introductory formalities, and would now proceed with the electrically charged agenda. The very sight of her would have blown Henry’s transistors.
Then, during an uneasy performance of the musical fish course — the conductor clearly feeling while he rendered Beethoven’s Pastoral that the audience was unsettled — I spotted Stergen up in one of the boxes. It wasn’t surprising to see him there but the comings and goings behind him were more reminiscent of a command vehicle at brigade headquarters than any pretensions to concert-going. Minions who looked remarkably like dispatch riders (though helmets were evidently taboo) kept arriving behind the padded seats and handing Stergen things to sign. Again — as with the Helical — the sentiments of Cape Kennedy had permeated an alien atmosphere. But apparently the great mass of pin-stripe and print-dressed were far more incensed against the teenagers — who were noisy during the Rossini and attentive for the Beethoven — than they were irritated by the front-line activity in Stergen’s box. Presumably the commuters were sufficiently tone deaf to ignore all but the more visual breaches of conduct, such as the colourful costumes and shoulder-length hair of the males, and the minis that showed an agreeable amount of feminine ripeness when subjected to the stresses imposed by upright chairs.
But the disapproval of the respectable middle-class fo
r the outrageously young was nothing to the hostility of the latter towards Stergen and his messenger boys. Here and now, in the space age, young people do not glower ... There isn’t a word for what they do do. I only know that it’s pretty menacing to be on the receiving end of the unblinking stare that turned-on teenagers reserve for their mortal enemies. The last few minutes of the Pastoral — normally signifying peace after the storm — seemed to be charging the entire hall like cumulo-nimbus before the first slash of fork lightning and I couldn’t understand it. I thought, from what Louise had told me, that flower power was on Stergen’s side. If these rebels ever had been they were certainly making up for it now. And if Michael Nobody’s television show of the week to come included in its cast any of these it looked like an opportunity for a networked version of an unholy truth game ...
Then came the interval. And as if I needed any further confirmation of Group Three’s inexplicable involvement with music, Prince Stavely’s head, whose hair shone like black treacle under the house lights, bobbed in the scuffle for the bar. He rose arthritically to his feet two rows off, and mumbling something to the world-weary woman I took to be his wife, trod bumblingly on a few feet on his way out. He saw me at once, hesitated, then sidled up in an all-out effort to be aesthetic.
‘I thought,’ he said, ‘that they took the Allegretto a shade too fast. Isn’t it supposed to be a shepherd’s hymn?’
‘I’m afraid I didn’t study the programme as closely as you,’ I said. ‘Maybe the conductor just thought it had better be cheerful. People didn’t seem to be enjoying it too much.’
Stavely loosened his suit where it had stuck fast. ‘How about a drink?’
‘No, thanks. There’s something about concert-hall bars that ruin alcohol. It reduces it by at least twenty proof. But if you want to interrogate me why not do it now? I can see you’re bristling with curiosity.’
‘There’s no need to be rude.’
‘There’s every need to be rude. You’re so stiff with musical ignorance that it would never occur to you that I might just come here to listen to music — and for no other reason at all.’
His face came up red like a stop light. ‘You are bitter, Yenn. I didn’t lose you your job, you know.’
‘I know! You’re quite incapable of doing anything so direct. Run along, now. You’re missing your port and lemon.’
I strolled out for some fresh air. Then it occurred to me to check my car. If Group Three were indulging themselves in musical intrigue it seemed possible they might get too interested. A little too much interest, and they would dig the Black Box, which awaited me in the glove compartment. That could well ruin the concert. Had they found it?
They hadn’t. But parked alongside was a Chevrolet. It had a dent in the door panel.
— So things were warming up. Who were those Yanks at the Mitre? Before I could attack this riddle the interval was over. I certainly didn’t intend to miss the Holst. I was relying on that for a few answers.
As I took my seat, the colossal orchestra demanded by the composer had almost doubled the area occupied by the musicians for the Beethoven. A tuner was making some adjustment to the console of the organ, then sending out jabs of pedal note till the organist beside him nodded, satisfied. We were on the air for this half of the concert. You could see the sound engineers high up in the tiny, postage-stamp window. By now a BBC announcer would be blurbing in sepulchral tones about the piece to come.
The applause greeting the conductor was an explosion. The flagging attention of before lay redundant. Seldom do you see concert-goers on the edge of their seats. They were now.
As I waited for the opening bars I glanced up at Stergen’s box — to find the doctor looking down at me with a curious, detached interest, as an astronomer might regard a vaguely inconvenient comet which, though quite interesting in itself, was marring the view of Jupiter. So Stavely had told him! I could imagine in what terms ...
Then we were off and away with the pummelling threat of Mars. As the brass rammed out the raucous fury of a frightening rhythm I glanced back at the teenagers. They sat utterly motionless, staring, in trance, at Stergen’s box.
The threat of war itself — the very smell of it — rendered foul what had seemed like a concert performance. It was nothing of the kind.
This was a Declaration.
Even the musicians seemed to feel it. As the fortissimo passage built to discordant screams — one half of the orchestra fighting in counterpoint the battle-cry of the other — fear and bewilderment registered on a hundred faces. Not one of them looked at the score. They seemed inspired by some brainpulse that had caught them all. It made their performance magnificent. But cold terror was gnawing the nerves of my spine.
Then the split came.
On the last frantic bars of the Martian theme a great wail of fury went up from the hippies as they rose to their feet in one colourflash of unanimous movement. And suddenly there was pandemonium. The hysteria which had been latent burst simultaneously upon the entire audience. People who were panicked from their seats were driven back into them in heaps as others fled, first one way, then the other, between the crowded rows. I saw framed in the doorway the duty Red Cross team. They hesitated, appalled at the spectacle. Then one of them darted out of sight — no doubt to call the police — while others rushed to the aid of the injured, who now comprised a screaming, organic carpet for those who could still reach the exits intact.
I was terrified for Louise — the more so because I couldn’t know where she was. The only thing to do was get back to the car and wait for her. I had to fight my way. Musicians were struggling with their instruments held aloft, escaping from a besieged platform in total disarray. A percussion man, numbed by the horror of it, watched paralysed as a music stand was driven through the big bass drum.
The scene out in the foyer was bedlam. I’d seen protest groups getting out of hand before but never like this. By now the psychedelics were chanting as if transformed into a single, composite Being. Their roar in the name of Peace had hunched concert-goers chilled and frightened into huddled groups in fear of being crushed. With good reason.
Police in helmets flooded into the foyer, only to be driven back in waves, like animated chessmen being swept from the board. As I forced my way outside, squad cars, their lights blazing, squealed around the corner to man the exits and cool the crowd. I didn’t wait to wonder how they proposed to do it, but ran through the darkness to the car park. Here a metal chorus of starter motors and fast-revved engines thundered to the descant of the panicked mob beyond. Trying to pull ahead of each other they jammed into a confused phalanx of shining metal and angry shouts and blaring horns. Police tried to stop them fouling up the approach road, so the more enterprising sped around the riverside lane, only to jam that.
I scanned the crowd. No sign of Louise. I didn’t even know whether she’d been in the audience. I hoped not, but now I was torn: If she didn’t show, how could I know she was safe? — I hadn’t even got her phone number.
I sweated it out, forcing myself to get on with things, to plan ahead, even if I never saw her again. And as I changed over the two gadgets — discarding Henry and setting up the Black Box — I had the horror-thought of wandering all night around the Festival area, searching emptiness for a girl who wasn’t there ...
‘Nigel?’
‘Thank God!’ There she was, alive and alert — and only slightly amused at my obvious despair. She had her hands in the pockets of her coat, conveying case.
I kissed the proffered smile.
Then we became conscious of the two men who had arrived at the dented Chevrolet. I recognized one of them from the Mitre — the chap who had got off with the receptionist — but the other I couldn’t place, though I thought I’d seen his face somewhere.
‘United States Navy,’ announced the first. ‘I’m Mike Duncan. Could we have a word? — in private?’ He seemed pleasant enough — certainly there wasn’t the impression that he had anything to do wit
h the sinister inmates of Group Three.
Louise said: ‘I’ll wait in the car.’
I didn’t like this. There was a lot of hysteria around us and anything could happen. Someone nearby in a Mercedes had already rammed a mini in an effort to get away too damn fast. A furious row had broken out because of it. The older of the two men stepped in quietly with: ‘I’ll stay in the car with her. Mike, can you carry on?’
‘Sure.’
Somehow I trusted them. And there was no time to dither about decisions. I had allowed myself enough tape to get home on. I was going to change tapes when we got to the flat. There would be nothing to spare with all this traffic to get through. So Duncan and I went off on our own, around on the riverside on that long, bleak promenade near the footbridge over the Thames. By now those who had arrived on foot from the underground across the river had left and were straddling the bridge. We enjoyed comparative peace as we strolled slowly together on the expanse of concrete.
I liked Duncan at once. He was a sailor of the modern school — highly technological, neither stiff nor nautical in bearing, not specifically American in the sense that there is very much difference between one national and another in the maritime world ... Sailors are sailors; they adapt to changes and evolutions within their calling rather than to variations according to domicile. This one was young and rather fair, almost pallid in the face, lacking in the familiar finish of the traditional American tough-leadership vein, authoritative but more through directness than discipline. He had the easy manner of the highly-trained specialist who knew his job — not the tight-lipped robotry of unquestioning obedience.
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