As he slid the envelope into his pocket, he noticed for the first time, lying beside him on the bench, the postcard he had bought at Burford Church. It must have fallen out as he removed the postcards of Silenus and Aphrodite. Anthony Sedley. Prisoner. He chuckled ruefully. Well, perhaps that was the only fitting memento he could have of his part in Heather’s plans. Harry Barnett. Prisoner. Of his own gullibility, of his own inability to believe that she might have misled him. He could not blame her for wanting to escape from her past and present. But neither could he forgive her for using him to achieve that escape. He could not blame her for the many failures strewn through his life. But neither could he forgive her for this last and most bitter failure of all. With a heavy sigh, he rose from the bench and trudged wearily away.
Harry had only been in Athens three days, but already he had established with the barman at the Hotel Ekonomical a close if scarcely warm understanding. Tacky coasters and greasy bowls of salted almonds did not accompany his drinks, as they did for other patrons. Nor was the barman’s stock of saturine pleasantries raided for his benefit. Harry was left in fact very much to his own devices. Following his return from the National Archaeological Museum, these amounted to nothing more than emptying successive bottles of extra-strong imported lager whilst staring at a reflection of his increasingly flushed face in the mirror behind the bar.
Harry began by applying his mind to the question of when he should leave Athens. This led him to confront the problem of where he should go when he left. And this forced him to admit that he neither knew nor cared. Lindos and Swindon seemed equally unthinkable. Alternatives were quite simply non-existent. The only choice he found remotely palatable was to drink away the remainder of his money in Athens and hope for inspiration along the way.
Noticing that a recently departed customer had left a copy of Athens News – the city’s only English language daily – lying on the next stool, Harry leaned across and appropriated it, reckoning its contents might slow his lager intake even if they did not entertain and enlighten him. Perusal of the first pages, however, failed to fulfil his hopes and he was about to toss it back when his eye was taken by an advertisement in the classified columns sandwiched between ‘Attractive young lady seeks foreign gentleman for good company’ and ‘Luxury Glyfada apartment to let.’ He could not say what had seized his attention. A word had seemed, for a fraction of an instant, familiar, but what that word was he did not know. Certainly the heading – ‘WANTED: friendly, efficient staff to work on Aegean islands April to October’ – did not explain it. Out of little more than idle curiosity, he read on. And then he understood.
WANTED: friendly, efficient staff to work on Aegean islands April to October. Must be fluent in English and either French or German. Selected individuals will be trained by an expert for a career in time-share promotion. Those seriously interested should attend the recruitment sessions being held at the Athens Hilton on Saturday 7 and Sunday 8 January, 3pm to 5pm each day or phone 722 0201 and ask for Barry Chipchase.
It was nearly five o’clock when Harry reached the Hilton Hotel, thirteen storeys of white-slabbed opulence at the traffic-snarled junction of Sofias and Konstantinou. Gazing up at its fluttering pennants and gushing fountains, he wondered whether he should not simply turn on his heel and walk away from the very idea of meeting Barry Chipchase again, more than sixteen years after their strained friendship had been shattered by a final betrayal.
En route from the Ekonomical, Harry had lingered on a bench in the National Garden considering the same point. He had recalled to his mind the draughty barrack-room where he and Chipchase had first met in 1953, Harry overwhelmed and confused by every aspect of life in uniform whilst Chipchase had shown himself the instant master of a dozen ploys designed to spare himself hard work. He had spirited Harry away on illicit expeditions to far-flung pubs and village dance-halls where local girls could be pursued. He had recruited Harry as his assistant in the covert acquisition and disposal of assorted RAF property. He had, in short, provided Harry with a thorough education in the ways of the world. Why Harry had not therefore anticipated just what kind of business partner Chipchase would be he was at a loss to explain. Barry’s fast tongue and quick wits had several times been the salvation of Barnchase Motors, but there had always been in him a tendency to overreach that had created as many problems as he could solve.
Dysart had warned Harry that Chipchase’s greed would be their undoing and, subconsciously, Harry had known he was right. Not that greed was, in his view, the real flaw in Barry’s character. Rather was it a juvenile delight in pulling off a stunt that he had never outgrown, a boredom with steadiness and sobriety, a craving to test his luck and judgement to the limit – and sometimes beyond.
And Harry’s own indolence had been, in its way, equally to blame. He could still remember, as if it were yesterday, the shale-faced receiver eyeing him across his desk and asking for the umpteenth time: ‘Do you really mean to say, Mr Barnett, that you had no inkling of what Mr Chipchase was planning?’ Yes. That really was what he had meant to say. Barry, after all, had encouraged him to slip away to the Railway Inn if there was an irate customer to be faced or an unpaid supplier to be pacified. Only when it was too late had Harry understood why. Only when it was far too late had he appreciated the price to be paid for wilful ignorance.
Harry had emerged from the National Garden opposite the Presidential Palace and watched for half an hour or more the balletic manoeuvres of the two sentries, backing and scraping in their pompommed clogs. The sight had recalled to his mind Chipchase’s characteristic observation on the rigours of drill and dress. ‘Do you know what I think every time that bastard Trench’ (a much-loathed warrant officer) ‘marches us down to the airfield barking out his instructions? I think: enjoy this while you can, Trench, because soon you’ll feel my boot on your shoulder passing you on the ladder of life. Bloody soon.’
Crossing the foyer of the Hilton, feeling suddenly down-at-heel amidst the sharp-suited businessmen and the glamorous women reading fashion magazines over afternoon tea, Harry could not help remembering Chipchase’s promise to force his way up the rungs of material success. If the Hilton was where he could afford to recruit staff, Harry could only suppose he had succeeded.
Barry’s name was known to the Charybdis-eyed receptionist. She directed Harry to a seminar room on the first floor and, within minutes, he was standing at the door, wondering if he should not take this last opportunity to turn back. Seeing the door was ajar, however, he pushed it open wider and peered in.
The room was large, spreading out across acres of carpet and leather furniture towards a window that soared higher than a cinema screen. The gathering darkness beyond was broken by the snaking headlamp trails of the city traffic and, couched remotely above them, the floodlit ramparts of the Acropolis. To one side of the window a porter was stacking chairs whilst, at a side-table, a small dapper-looking man sat arranging slides in different boxes. There was a projector on the table beside him and a pile of leaftets. Between each placement of a slide, he glanced nervously towards another man, who was patrolling the space in front of the window, declaiming in loud and confident tones.
‘Stick to my coat-tails, Niko, and you’re on the gravy train to Paradise. I made a pile out of time-share in Spain and I intend to do the same here. It’ll come to the Aegean. It’s bound to. The trick is to be in at the ground floor. Know what I mean?’
Harry knew, even if Niko did not, for Barry Chipchase had not varied his formula, merely juggled the ingredients. RAF surplus, used cars, jerry-built haciendas: it was all the same to him. Nor physically had he changed as much as Harry had expected. Fatter yes, but only marginally, and greyer or balder not at all. The wavy black hair did not look as if it still broke combs, but many a fifty-three-year-old would have been proud of such a thatch. The voice had dropped an octave or two and developed a croak that suggested forty cigarettes still reached his lips each day. And as for the clothes – lightweight suit, coo
rdinated shirt and tie, flamboyantly draped pocket handkerchief, alligator shoes, a flash of gold about the wrists and fingers – they all suggested what Harry found it hardest to forgive: that the intervening years had treated Barry Chipchase uncommonly well.
‘This is only the start, Niko, mark my words. Turkey. The Adriatic. North Africa. The sky’s the limit. I smelt profit in this room this afternoon. Big profit. Do you know what they used to say about me in Spain? That opportunity was my middle name.’
It was too late to turn back now. Harry was striding across the room and preparing to speak. ‘Opportunity’s a new one on me, Barry,’ he said aloud. ‘I thought your middle name was Herbert.’
The hand with which Chipchase was raising his cigarette to his mouth froze in mid-movement. He turned slowly round and stared at Harry in wide-eyed amazement. For once his pliant features were legible. For once he had been taken unawares. ‘Harry,’ he murmured. ‘Bloody hell.’
‘Hello, Barry. Good to see you’re keeping well. I’m sorry this isn’t a Monday.’
‘A Monday?’
‘Well, that’s when I expected to see you again: a Monday morning. I remember you saying as you left the garage: “See you Monday.” But you never showed up. You sent the bailiff instead.’ Chipchase tried to summon a smile; Harry pressed on. ‘Why don’t you introduce me to your chum?’
‘Er …’
‘The name’s Barnett, Niko: Harry Barnett. I’m one of those who fell off the gravy train to Paradise – shortly after it left the station.’
54
‘YOU SHOULD BE grateful to me, Harry. Bloody grateful. But for me, you’d have had no excuse. You’d have had to face up to the fact that, as far as business went, you were a babe in arms. I made it easy for you. I’ll bet you told everybody that you had no idea how bad things were, that I’d kept the truth from you, that I’d run off and left you to face the music. As sob stories go, it must have been a gold medal weepy. So don’t give me the old long-nosed resentful treatment, because I won’t let you get away with it.’
Two hours had passed since Harry’s arrival at the Hilton. He and Chipchase were in a dimly lit corner of the Pan Bar, the low table beside them scattered with empty bottles, paper coasters, cigarette ash and pistachio husks. Chipchase’s initial embarrassment had changed to ingratiation; he had plied Harry with brimming drinks and grinning regrets. Now, with their respective post-Barnchase careers paraded for inspection in an excess of drunken candour, Harry could only admire the skilful manner in which his companion had made embezzling company funds and fleeing the country with Jackie seem an act of generosity.
‘You see, Harry, your problem’s always been the same. You don’t like life at the bottom of the heap, but you don’t know how to make it to the top. Too many scruples. Too little talent. It’s a fatal combination. It gives you more pleasure to gripe and growl at failure than revel in success. So leaving you in the lurch at Barnchase was really the best turn I ever did you.’
‘It didn’t seem like it at the time.’
‘Maybe not, but you have to see it from my point of view. What good would it have done for me to carry the can along with you? My running out on you meant you could play the innocent and get away with it.’
‘I was innocent.’
‘Pull the other one. Better still, drink it and we’ll order another. After all, this is a celebration. The old firm back together. Who’d have thought it, eh? Who’d have bloody thought it?’
‘I had to sell my house.’
‘Oh, stop complaining, for God’s sake. At least you weren’t stuck with Jackie. Taking her along was a big mistake, I can tell you, probably the biggest I ever made. I thought she loved me, you know. I thought she’d be loyal to me. Christ, can you believe old Chipchase would be so bloody naïve? As soon as she got to Spain, she started giving the eye to those tall dark beanpole Latins. Wobbling her charms up and down the beaches waiting for them to snap her up. Well, she didn’t have to wait long, take it from me.’
‘She tells it differently.’
‘She would, wouldn’t she? She was always quick with a cover story, our Jackie. What line did she say she was in now?’
‘Hairdressing.’
‘And married to money?’
‘Apparently. Big house. Fast car. All the trappings.’
‘Proves my point, then doesn’t it? A cunning little bitch from the first, our Miss Fleetwood. I blame you for taking her on. And what about you, Harry, eh? Seems to me you didn’t exactly end up in jankers. Rhodes: the island of roses and all that crap. The Villa ton bloody something. Sounds like just about the cushiest number a bloke could land.’
‘Alan was very generous, it’s true.’
‘Huh!’ Chipchase swayed back in his chair and signalled to the waiter for refills, then shaped a sarcastic sneer. ‘As for Alan Dysart, I wish you well of him. I wouldn’t trust him further than I could toss a ballot-box.’
‘Got it in for politicians, Barry? This is a new side to your character.’
‘Nothing of the bloody kind.’ A brief silence intruded whilst the waiter fussed around the table, then Chipchase resumed. ‘Politicians are on the make just like the rest of us. But that’s not why I distrust our former car cleaner turned darling of the people.’
‘Why, then?’
Chipchase took a gulp from his recharged glass. ‘It’s a long story,’ he muttered. ‘And an old one. Let’s change the subject.’
‘If it’s that old, why haven’t I heard it before?’
Chipchase let out a sudden breath that set his cheeks vibrating and puffed on his cigarette. ‘You really want to know?’
‘Yes. I really want to know.’
‘Well, it’s no secret. I didn’t like him from the start. Too many airs and graces for stripping down car engines. Too many brain cells not to notice what was what in the used car business. And too many easier ways to earn a holiday crust. Why did he latch on to us, Harry, eh? Why did he come all the way to Swindon to cool his heels in the vacations?’
‘A girlfriend originally, wasn’t it? In Wootton Bassett.’
‘Girlfriend in Wootton Bassett my left buttock. She was pure bloody fantasy, I’m sure of it.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Since you ask, Harry old cock, I’ll tell you.’ Chipchase leaned forward across the table, his eyes alight with enthusiasm. ‘I’d probably have told you at the time, but it was just before I left in a hurry. You and I weren’t exactly on gossiping terms then, were we? July ’72, it must have been. Do you remember I went up to Birmingham to re-schedule our credit with Cosway Tyres?’
‘Vaguely.’
‘Wonderful phrase, that: re-schedule our credit. Anyway, the point is I got lost on the way back. Birmingham’s roads are more of a maze than Hampton Court. I ended up stopping somewhere in the Solihull area to ask directions. It was a long straight road with houses one side and a cemetery the other.’
‘I don’t quite—’
‘Don’t be so bloody impatient, Harry: I’m coming to it. I’d been given a route to the A34 by some long-winded poodle-trotter and was on the point of setting off when, about a hundred yards away on the other side of the road, who should I see but Alan Dysart climbing out of his car? You know, that white Spitfire he used to run. He was dressed in black and carrying a wreath in his hand. Just like he was going to a funeral. Except there was no funeral. No hearse, no coffin, no eye-piping mourners. Nothing except an empty cemetery sloping away up this bit of a hill beside the road. I’d have beeped the horn or called out, but there was something, well, odd about him. He walked in through the cemetery gate, headed up the main drive, then turned off and I lost him amongst the tombstones.’
‘I’d have thought—’
‘Will you hold your bloody horses, Harry! What you’d have thought or done makes no difference. What I thought was that it was all a bit fishy. And what I did was wait. I lit a fag and smoked it through. And I was about to light another when he reappeared, m
inus wreath, climbed into his car and roared off.’
‘For God’s sake, Barry—’
‘This is it!’ Chipchase’s voice hissed with emphasis. ‘This is the bloody point! I was in no hurry. And I was suspicious. Always had been, if it comes to it. So I got out of the car and took a stroll in the cemetery. Headed for the part I’d seen him in. Wandered about looking for the wreath he’d been carrying. Well, there weren’t many fresh wreaths, so it didn’t take me long. There it was, white lilies, no card, on one of the graves. And guess whose grave it was?’
‘How should I know? His aunt Doris?’
‘Oh no. Not an aunt or uncle. Not a brother or a sister. Not a father or a mother.’ Chipchase’s face was split by a vast grin of delight at the secret he was about to share.
‘Whose, then?’
‘His own, Harry boy. His own bloody grave.’
Less than half an hour later, Harry was in a taxi speeding north through Athens’ suburbs, destination Iraklio. Watching the lights of other cars flash by the window, listening to the blaring horns and whining sirens, Harry seemed to see and hear them through a screen of displaced awareness. Barry Chipchase’s eager, twitching face and the strange, malicious story he had told were still to the fore of his perceptions, the sights he had conjured and the words he had chosen still holding all else at bay.
‘His own bloody grave, Harry. Alan Dysart. Died April the something, 1952, aged five. Your ears have pricked up now, haven’t they? Your eyes have widened. Well, it’s God’s own truth I’m telling you. Dead as mutton, thirty-seven years ago, aged five. Which would make him now?’
It would make him Dysart’s age. Exactly. Harry had not needed to say it. He had not needed to say anything. Chipchase had read the incredulity in his face.
‘You can’t believe it can you? It doesn’t make an ounce of bloody sense, does it? If Alan Dysart is dead, who’s the Alan Dysart we know, Harry, eh? Who the bloody hell is he? I wish I could tell you. Funny thing is, you’ll have to take my word even for the little I do know. I went home to Swindon that day rattling my brains for an answer and I came up with nothing. In the end, I began to think I’d imagined the whole bloody thing. So I went back. About a fortnight later, I took a day off. To play golf with the bank manager, I told you. In fact, I went up to Solihull, found the cemetery and looked for the grave. But the stone wasn’t there anymore. You could see the base where it had been hacked off, but the stone had gone. And with it the inscription.’
Into the Blue Page 42