1993 - The Blue Afternoon

by William Boyd

  He soon saw the Palace ahead, the gardens down to the river bright with Chinese lanterns and the wide arches on its ground—and first-floor facade picked out with strings of red and yellow electric lights. They disembarked and moved through the surprising number of people to the receiving line. Governor and Mrs Taft stood on a small dais beneath a flapping sailcloth canopy. To one side the constabulary band was seated in a semicircle energetically playing a gavotte and just beyond them, laid over some lawn tennis courts, was an open-air ballroom with three banked rows of seats surrounding it. In various positions about the gardens were buffets of food and small tables with punch bowls. The Stars and Stripes was draped everywhere: how the Americans loved their flag, he thought.

  He shook Taft’s hand. The man looked grotesque in his evening wear, more obese than ever. His bulging face was pink and shiny with sweat but he greeted everybody with unchanging geniality, shaking their hands vigorously and repeating “pleased to meet you, very pleased to meet you”, in the American manner. Carriscant waited a little awkwardly as Annaliese chatted to Mrs Taft. He could not tell if the Governor recognised him—his welcome displayed the same booming familiarity to everyone—and he thought this was not the time to remind him of their last encounter. Taft smoothed his moustache and grinned at him like a jolly uncle. Carriscant gave him a little smile in return. He wondered vaguely if Bobby had told him about the murdered woman? The band struck up ‘Campdown Races’ and Taft jovially conducted a few bars.

  “My absolute favourite,” he said, seemingly directing the remark to Carriscant, though he appeared to be looking into the middle distance.

  “What? I’m sorry, I—”

  “Such a pretty tune. Always cheers me up.”

  “Indeed.”

  To his relief Annaliese had finished her conversation and at last he could shake Mrs Taft’s limp hand, smile at her and move on. He steered Annaliese towards a table where punch was being served by Chinese waiters. Big chunks of ice floated in a suspiciously peat-coloured liquid. It was hard to tell what its constituents were but at least it was cold. And powerful. Carriscant drained his first cupful and went back for a refill. Already he could feel the alcohol working on him: perhaps he could survive this evening after all.

  He strolled with Annaliese towards the band, stopping to exchange some words with acquaintances. They stood and watched the musicians in their blue uniforms with red epaulettes as they played the official Rigodon to start the dancing and the first couples moved on to the dance floor. Carriscant felt slowed and dulled by the rush of the alcohol, a little addled by the punch, and found his gaze resting on an elegant mestiza, her oiled hair hanging in a glossy dark sheet over a hand painted camisa with intricate whorls of embroidery worked on the fan-shaped sleeves. Never seen one quite so delicately done, he thought, and turned to point it out to Annaliese, but she had moved off some paces to talk to Father Agoncillo.

  “Good evening, Dr Carriscant.” His blood stopped and he felt his innards slip and tumble.

  She stood a few yards away, in a long slate-blue dress with a tightly cinched waist. She carried a slim ebony cane with a silver handle. Her hair was piled high on her head in a style he had not seen before, curled and wild. Her eyes were clear and smiling, and the low frilled front of her dress showed her collarbones and the freckled paleness of her chest.

  Annaliese rejoined him.

  “My dear, I don’t think you’ve met Mrs Sieverance.” He presented Annaliese. “My wife, Annaliese.”

  “Mrs Sieverance, I’m glad to see you looking so well.”

  “Ah, thanks only to your husband, Mrs Carriscant.”

  There was a hellish silence.

  “What…I mean, no. Ah, no discomfort? No difficulties in any—”

  “Don’t worry, Doctor,” she said, smiling. “The cane, I must confess, is a bit of a luxury. One hates to abandon such a dashing accessory.”

  “Yes,” he said, stupidly, seeing her glance at Annaliese. “Yes.”

  “Is your husband here?” Annaliese asked.

  “He’s in Mindanao. They’re having trouble, I believe, with the insurrectos.”

  He felt he was about to collapse. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I see Chief Bobby there.” He gave a small bow and marched off, leaving them talking. He had not seen Bobby but he made directly for a crowd of people around a buffet table where he drank two more cupfuls of punch and tried to regain his composure. He filled a plate with savoury biscuits shaped in stars to take back to Annaliese. He felt…He did not know what he felt. He had never seen anyone so beautiful, he thought. He had never physically desired someone so much: the pressure of being beside her and of not being able to touch her had been intolerable, shocking. After a few moments he managed to calm himself down, saw that Annaliese was alone again and crossed the lawn to rejoin her.

  “What’re these?”

  “I thought you might be hungry.”

  “No thank you.” He handed the plate to a passing waiter.

  “Very much the Gibson Girl,” Annaliese said, patronisingly. “Very. What must she think of us poor colonials?”

  “Who?”

  “Your Mrs Sieverance. She’s certainly got right there as they say. Must have six inches of hair pads. At least.”

  “She’s made an excellent recovery.”

  “I think that all that untidy hair makes them look like shop girls.”

  “To be out and about after an operation of that seriousness is—”

  “Vulgar. So American.”

  Later, when Annaliese was sitting round the dance floor with Mrs Freer and Madame Champoursin, Carriscant took his opportunity to slip away and go in search of her. He saw her standing under a frangipani tree talking to some Americans—he thought he recognised one from that night on the Luneta—and he passed close enough to the group so that she would see him. He went to a table draped in the Stars and Stripes and ordered yet another punch—he felt awash with punch, but there was nothing else for it.

  “Hello again, Dr Carriscant.”

  He turned to face her. He felt tears sting his eyes. Beyond her he noticed the others glancing over.

  “Would you like a—? Can I offer you—?”

  She seemed so calm, so controlled. They stood two feet apart. He handed her the punch cup. His hand was trembling and the liquid slopped over the rim.

  “You didn’t tell me your wife was so attractive. She was very…polite, I thought.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said thickly. “It’s not important. There’s nothing between us, nothing, I told you.”

  “I was a bit surprised, I must say.”

  “I’ve missed you,” he said in a low voice, trying to look like he was engaged in superficial chitchat. “I have to see you again. Can you come to the hospital?”

  “No. Come to the house, the day after tomorrow. Three in the afternoon. Return my book.”

  “I love you,” he said. “I adore you.”

  “I know.” She looked at him, that way, then raised her voice. “I’ll bear that in mind, Dr Carriscant. Thank you.”

  He looked round. Paton Bobby, beaming, was striding across the lawn towards them.

  “Evening, Doctor, you look almost distinguished. Almost. Evening, Mrs Sieverance.”

  They shook hands. It was clear, much to Carriscant’s surprise, that Bobby knew her fairly well. Bobby made an appointment to see him the next day and they chatted a while about the situation in Mindanao. After a minute Bobby moved on.

  “I must go now,” she said, her eyes big with secret messages.

  “Yes,” he said lamely. He felt a thick-tongued dullard. A Cruz semi-mute.

  She turned away and sauntered back to her friends. The trembling in Carriscant’s legs forced him to move quickly to the low wall that marked the edge of the garden, where he sat down. It was five minutes before he felt able to go and find Annaliese and suggest that it was time they returned home.

  THE LIBRARY

  She locked the doo
r and turned to face him. He could see she was excited also, her chest rising and falling.

  “We have ten minutes,” she said.

  They kissed. He held her fiercely to him, his face in the angle of her neck and shoulder. His lips touched her moist skin, feeding off her salt. He breathed in her smell.

  “Jesus Christ,” he said. “My God, you don’t know how—”

  “Don’t cry,” she said, smiling at him. “You’ll set me off.”

  “Is the nurse—”

  “No. But there are servants. I can’t risk anything.”

  They sat down opposite each other, he held both her hands in his, and made every banal declaration to her that he could think of. He kissed her knuckles, pressed them to his forehead.

  “I have to be with you,” he said. “It’s killing me. We have to find some way.”

  “But what?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, real despair in his voice. “I just can’t think.”

  “An hotel?”

  “In Manila? There are no secrets in this wretched place. Everyone knows me. Everyone watches everyone else. Impossible.” He felt the frustration build in him. “Damn this place. Damn this stinking city.” He sank to his knees in front of her, putting his arms round her hips, burying his face in her lap, feeling her hands on his head, his shoulders.

  “I could come to the hospital again,” she whispered. “Maybe just once more. I can’t go unaccompanied too often. I could have another crisis or something. A relapse, maybe.”

  “Wednesday, the same time. No-one will be there.”

  “Her day off is Friday.”

  “Friday, then.” He kissed her, his tongue in her mouth. Her cool mouth, her slick quick tongue. He squeezed her breasts.

  “Salvador, no.” She stood up and unlocked the door. She rang a small handbell and sat down, leaving the door ajar. “We have to be careful,” she said. “So very careful. Stay and have tea with me, let all the servants see. Nothing could be more natural. When I write to Jepson I’ll tell him about your visit. Everything must be above suspicion.”

  TRIAL RUN

  Pantaleon’s hands gripped the edge of the uppermost blade of the propeller. The Aero-mobile stood outside its shed; in front of it stretched eighty yards of new planked roadway.

  Carriscant stood to one side, his hands holding the ropes that were attached to large wooden wedges set against the front wheels of the supporting carriage. Pantaleon jerked down on the propeller and there came a fart of noise from the engine and a puff of bluish smoke from the exhaust. He pulled again and this time it caught. He leapt back and the blade began to spin, blurring into a shimmering disc. Pantaleon walked round the wing, leaned over and pushed a lever to engage the chain drive of the other propeller, which began to turn also, slowly at first and then after a second or two with real speed. The noise of the engine was loud, high and angry, and the Aero-mobile shook and quivered, like a thoroughbred at the start of a race. Pantaleon climbed into the forward saddle and sat there a moment, head bowed, hands on his control levers, as if he was at prayer, and then turned to shout out something at Carriscant—which he could not hear over the engine—but the sweeping gesture with a hand told him he wanted the wedges removed. Carriscant hauled them away and to his astonishment, for he had never really believed the Aero-mobile capable of movement, the machine began to move slowly forward, thrumming and vibrating like a hovering dragonfly, as Pantaleon slowly opened the throttle. Carriscant trotted along beside it as it rolled along the roadway, shouting encouragement to Pantaleon, and then began to run as the machine picked up speed but it soon outstripped him. He stopped, out of breath, and shouted weakly, “Go, Pantaleon, go!” But then Pantaleon cut the engine and the blades abruptly stopped spinning and he saw him reach down to apply the brakes to the front wheels and the Aero-mobile began to slow, although it started to veer to the right. Carriscant watched as the wheels reached the raised edge of the roadway and the machine, moving at walking pace now, slowly tipped over on to its nose. There was a distinct crunching sound as of a bundle of dry twigs being broken.

  Carriscant ran up as Pantaleon stepped out of his saddle. He saw that the front elevator was buckled, its doped silk torn and wrinkled. Pantaleon’s face was flushed and startled, and his hands were shivering with excitement. Spontaneously he and Carriscant embraced, thumping each other on the back.

  “My God, Salvador, you should have felt it. The power. It was straining to leave the ground. I could feel it. And I was only at half throttle. It was longing to fly, I tell you, longing!”

  “Congratulations, Panta. You know, I never really believed…But I was running, and then it began to outstrip me. Magnificent, magnificent!”

  They inspected the broken elevator at the front and saw that the damage was not too severe. They heaved the machine back on to the roadway with some effort and then pushed it back towards the nipa barn.

  “One thing is clear, we have to make that rear wheel turnable,” Pantaleon said, “to keep it on its true course on the roadway. A simple steering device, a tiller of some kind.” His face was alive and mobile, joyful. “Honestly, Salvador, I’ve never experienced a moment like that. I felt…” He paused, he could not think of the exact word. “I don’t know. On the verge. Like an explorer, I suppose, discovering a continent, an ocean. Something like that. Everything ahead is blank and I am going to take a step into the void, part a curtain, if you know what I mean.”

  Carriscant did: he had experienced those sensations himself with the human body. The first time he had opened the stomach cavity. Imagine what it would be like to expose the living brain, the spinal column, the heart. He felt no envy for Pantaleon: they were colleagues, fellow spirits now, both exploring their terrae incognitae.

  They trundled the Aero-mobile back into the barn and Pantaleon fussed over the machine checking its components. One strut had sprung from its mountings and there seemed to be a small leak from the fuel tank. Carriscant stepped back and let Pantaleon tend to his creation.

  In one corner of the nipa barn, he noticed, a kind of living area had been set up: a low canvas camp bed, a table with a jug and ewer on it and a lantern. He wandered over. On a tin plate was a heel of bread and some fish bones.

  “Have you got someone standing guard, Panta?” Carriscant asked, half joking. “Protecting your precious invention?”

  “That’s for me,” Pantaleon said. “I work here through the night more and more often. It made more sense if I set a bed up in here.”

  Carriscant shook his head in admiration: here was true dedication to a dream. True devotion to a cause. And now he had seen the Aero-mobile in motion he was beginning to think that Pantaleon Quiroga’s name might well go down in the annals of human endeavour after all.

  BRAHMS

  Her face was two inches from his. He ran a finger down her cheek and across her lips. He felt an extraordinary liberation wash through him, an immense gratitude, and he was duly humbled by it. That he could hold her like this in his arms, that her body was pressed against his, that he was free to touch and caress her wherever he wished, seemed to him almost incredible, fantastical. It was a gift surpassing all acts of generosity, and he kept touching her fleetingly—her face, her breasts, her arms, her buttocks as if to reassure himself that this was still the case.

  They had made love on his firm leather examination couch, more orthodoxly this time, but with the same cautious tenderness. Neither of them was naked, as if in mutual acknowledgement that his consulting rooms were not a suitable place for total disrobement, that there was still something snatched and furtive about this moment. She had undressed to a cotton chemise and petticoat; he had removed everything but his shirt and drawers. Then she had lain back on the couch and lifted the hem of the petticoat to her waist. He had climbed between her spread legs and, kneeling there, had fumblingly undone his drawers as she reached to pull them down until they bunched at his knees.

  Later, as they lay together, he had lifted her chemise to e
xpose her breasts and had kissed them tenderly, reverentially. And now he stared into her face, studying its features and contours as if he had to memorise them for an exam.

  “I can’t believe it,” he said. “I can’t believe that I have you here, that I can hold and touch you…”

  She smiled and hunched into his arms, her hand on his ribs, her shoulder fitting snug in his armpit. He moved his leg and felt his foot go over the edge of the examination couch. His elation faded instantly as the brute facts of their circumstances forced themselves in on him once more—the facts of where they were and how short a time they would be together. She seemed to sense his mood change, and touched his face, stretching her neck to kiss his chin.