Kinky collected Frankie Marr with one hand and held the other out to me and started off towards the village. She was wearing tight grey jeans and a saffron sweater; they were well filled both to north and south.
“How’s your head, Standish?” she inquired.
“If I’m bats I don’t notice it, not even now that I’m sober.”
“There are others who aren’t sober and are bats,” she observed darkly but refused to develop the theme.
In the village of Hazard Point there was more activity than I remembered from previous visits; that is to say that between half a dozen and a dozen people were to be seen in the single street and about half that number of cars. A police car with chattering radio-receiver was parked in the centre of the village and had collected a crowd of one small boy; perhaps the rest of the children were up on the hills searching for Scanlon. Neither Frankie’s Cadillac nor Kinky’s aged conveyance was to be seen.
“I’ll bet they’re all down at the pub near the beach,” she suggested.
Frankie grunted. He did not seem too pleased but he plodded on. I, however, detached myself from the march at the post office; I wanted to put through my call to London in decent privacy. As it happens I was revolted at the thought of settling down to a drinking session shortly after ten in the morning; that sort of thing is only permissible when one has got up before dawn. It was almost with a feeling of conscious rectitude that I entered what appeared to be the only place of business in the village that was not licensed for the sale of intoxicating liquors.
There were two telephone-boxes, one within and one without the portals of the post office; the outside one was occupied by a man in an ancient mackintosh coat. I asked myself who would wear a mack in a call-box on a sweltering day? The only suggestion that I could make was that the man was the local correspondent of a metropolitan news agency, that he had at last achieved his ambition of dictating over the wire sensational stuff for the front pages, and that he was dressing the part of the crime reporter as the cinema of his youth had told him that it should be dressed. There had seemed to be little point in waiting for him to finish, so I had decided to try my luck in the interior. The prospects here, however, were no better. A religious light showed two counters, one devoted to the official purposes of the post office and the other abandoned to the frivolity of books, stationery and what are known as fancy goods; in a corner stood an occupied telephone-box and two gum-chewing girls who were apparently waiting for it to be free. There were a few other assorted customers of the house who on my entry seemed to be simply staring into vacancy, or at me. The silence was even more reverent than the light.
A neatly-suited, if somewhat too tightly permed, grey-haired woman behind the official counter surprised me by saying — “Good morning,” quite loudly. Dead-pan, the room waited to learn my business.
“Good morning,” I said, “I’d like to put a call through to London, please.”
The grey-haired woman knew all about that; the exchange was probably in the same building. “There’s up to half an hour’s delay to Galway; from there on it’s anybody’s guess. Is there anywhere we could put the call through to you? These boxes are booked up for a while yet.”
I dismissed the thought of Barney’s estate office. “Is there a pub or hotel that has a box? I don’t want to disturb people by speaking from an open bar.”
The silent customers exhaled gently; the point was taken. The grey-haired woman smiled. “You’ll find the Hazard Arms very quiet and convenient,” she said. “Left out the door and first right.”
Out on the pavement the reporter was still sweltering in his telephone-box; I think he really must have been a reporter. He had taken off his mack and jacket; otherwise the picture was unchanged. Even through the glass I could see the shiny dampness of his face and that his shirt was sweat-marked round the armpits. A cigarette waggled in his mouth as he spoke, dictating perhaps from the notebook propped in front of him on the coin-box; he seemed to be set for a long session. I had little wish to follow him in his Turkish bath, even if there had not been others with a prior claim, so I turned left and then right as I had been instructed and arrived at the beach. It was without surprise that I observed a sleek Cadillac and an ancient vehicle resembling Kinky’s standing outside the Hazard Arms. By the exercise of some guile and the avoidance of the bars I succeeded in making my telephonic arrangements without being seen by any of the morning drinkers though, quite forgetful of my earlier horror at the thought of alcohol at such a time of day, I provided myself with a gin and tonic before sitting down to await my call; then with as much care not to be observed as if I were a pick-pocket about to examine a stolen wallet I took out Grace’s letter.
The Hazard Arms had probably begun life as a small farmhouse and the progress of its career as an inn could be traced in the period of the various excrescential additions that had been made to it from time to time, though an overall coat of whitewash gave it homogeneity with its various parts and with its setting. The obviously aboriginal hall was small, dark and deserted, but it boasted an enormous telephone-box which seemed to be reasonably sound-proof, provided that one succeeded in shutting the too-tightly fitting door. The drawback was that, even with the assistance of the box’s dim and fly-blown electric bulb, it would have been impossible to read anything, certainly not a telephone directory. Fortunately I was calling my agent and I knew his number; it was scarcely any less dark anywhere in the hall, however, and I did not know the contents of Grace’s letter.
Why had she written to me? During the last months of our marriage we had agreed only on the necessity of our parting and even that agreement had hurt us both. We seemed, indeed, to be able to hurt each other with the same facility that we had formerly shared our joy with and, I suppose, for the same reason; and we had set about the business of divorce with the intensity of lovers who must be either all or nothing to each other. We were, fairly obviously, emotionally immature as sophisticated people so often are and we had felt that our only hope of anything approaching happiness lay in getting each out of the other’s hair. We had done this with urgency and, it seemed, effectiveness; now, however, Grace was writing to me. Why? I had only to take her letter out into the daylight to find out but I hesitated.
A week ago, twenty-four hours ago — I thought — a letter from Grace would have seemed like an answer to prayer; now it could only provide a touch of dramatic irony in my life. I am not very good at praying, in fact I think that prayer from someone who leads a selfish life can be little more than an insult offered to the Creator and I am sufficiently a believer to want to avoid that, but perhaps the heart can pray even when the lips are silent and the brain remains aloof. Anyhow here was a letter — too late. I might not have crossed the Rubicon but I was waist deep in it. I was too fond of Stella to hurt her seriously, even if it was only in her pride. Or was I merely too weak to take any course other than the easy one? I was prepared to hurt myself but not her. Perhaps this was a sign that in my middle thirties I was growing up, but — if such were the case — why did I boggle at opening the letter. All I was sure of was that with the unopened envelope in my hand I felt like a double traitor. Why the hell did that blasted telephone not ring and give me the chance to get one chore finished with and find some place where I should be really alone?
“I only wish I could believe you, darling.”
My cousin Juliet’s voice crashed in on my preoccupation. Fortunately she was not addressing me. She and Kinky Myles, bound presumably from the well-windowed bar to the “Ladies,” were entering through the front door; obviously they did not recognise me, perhaps they did not even realise that there was anyone at all other than themselves in the dark hall.
“I don’t think you need to be so snooty when I’m only trying to help you,” Kinky replied as they passed my table. “Really darling, you are a silly, suspicious little bitch.”
“I don’t mind being called a silly bitch,” Juliet’s voice was tense; she sounded near to tears. “But
I’m damned if I’m going to be treated like one. Sometimes I think ——”
What she sometimes thought I did not hear. A door at the back of the hall shut upon them and their voices and I was left alone once more with my thoughts.
It occurred to me that, if I were to avoid becoming involved with the girls and their drinking companions, my best course was to take refuge in the telephone-box; to think, on this occasion at least, was to act. I bolted into the box and kept my hand poised half an inch above the receiver in case the wretched thing should take it into its electronic head to ring, as I strongly suspected that it would do, just when the girls were on their way back through the hall, Now I was ready for anything — provided that it happened within a reasonable time.
Nothing happened, of course. The seconds sauntered by, their passing marked only by the ticking of a grandfather clock that reminded me of the death-watch beetle. I grew stiff and hot in the airlessness of the box and I began again to think of Grace; I had been almost afraid to open her letter when there was nothing but my own reluctance to hinder me, now I had an irresistible longing to know its contents. The thought came suddenly that she might be sick, or in trouble. Grace had never been sick and, if she had troubles, she had kept them to herself. She would not ask for anyone’s help, least of all mine, unless her need were desperate. Only a serious matter would have made her write to me at all — obviously — and I, with her letter in my pocket, lacked the guts to open it. With a heave I shoved the door of the telephone-box out of my way, ran through the hall and out into the porch beyond it where the light was sufficiently good for reading. I tore open the envelope and extracted the letter. It was at that exact moment that the telephone chose to ring indecently loudly.
I suppose that a telephone sited in the least frequented part of a country inn needs a loud bell; this one would have served to call the crew of a battleship to action stations. I thrust the letter once again into a pocket and hurtled back to the box; I had no wish to collect a crowd while I spoke to my agent. I could not read the number of the telephone and had forgotten that the pub was called the Hazard Arms.
“Hallo,” I said with startling originality.
“Is Mr. Wyse available for his personal call to Mr. Ivor Brewis at Temple Bar?” a voice inquired.
I said that he was and that I was he.
“Hold the line, please.”
I had not taken time to shut the door of the box; this, as I have indicated was a major operation which, spurred on by sounds suggesting that Kinky and Juliet were returning from the loo, I now hastened to undertake. I held the door open to its fullest extent, got set for a good swing, then slammed the wretched thing as hard as I could. There followed one of those lacunae in time during which disaster can be seen to impend but cannot be averted, while the big glass panel forming the greater part of the door shook itself free of its moorings and toppled slowly outwards; the crash which followed may not have been earth-shattering but it seemed damnably loud to me.
“Holy cow! Would you look what the man’s done?”
The hall, of course, had suddenly become full with an interested audience. I could identify Kinky and Juliet and the young woman in black with whom I had made arrangements about the call and who had brought me my drink. Other nondescript bods were standing about, drinking it all in and commenting gleefully. “Oh, the place is in a desperate state. This will be a costly business for someone,” seemed to represent the general opinion.
The telephone was making scrambling noises, however, and needed attention. I got back into my corner, raised the receiver to my ear and said — “Hallo,” guardedly. The scrambling resolved itself into Ivor Brewis’s voice.
“Standish — how’s my boy?” he inquired. “What was that bomb I heard going off. Are the I.R.A. after you?”
“I want you to do something for me,” I said.
“If you’ve got mixed up in a revolution, there might be a publicity angle. Keep out of the way of the bombs, though. I had dinner with Leichnitz last night. He wants you ——”
That was the trouble with Ivor Brewis; he liked the sound of his own voice, which was more than I did just then. In spite of the wrecked door, it was very hot in the box; layers of stale air had been built up in it over the years and were not going to go out just because the glass was broken. Anger with myself and the effort of finding words with which to let a man who would not listen know what I wanted without including the population of the Hazard Arms, who appeared only too anxious to listen, in the discussion added to my heat. I could feel beads of sweat forming on my forehead and big drops running under my sleeve from the hand that held the instrument.
“I told him you weren’t interested,” Ivor pursued, “and that you were on holiday ——”
“Never mind that now. Will you ring up Joe Byers for me?”
“The offer’s not a bad one as it is, but if you play hard to get ——” Ivor paused, then said in a different tone — “Joe Byers.”
“Yes.”
“Your broker?”
A broker’s concern is with money and money talks, and Ivor Brewis was not the man to ignore what it said. I had found the way to get his attention.
“Tell him ——” I lowered my voice. “Tell him I may want a couple pried loose in the near future to be employed in another way.”
“Someone can hear what you’re saying,” Ivor suggested.
“You’re quite right.”
“But not what I say?”
“Right again — I hope.”
“A couple of what — hundreds? Thousands?”
“The latter.”
“For reinvestment. You’re on to something?”
“Maybe.”
“Something I might be interested in?”
“We’ll talk about that when I see you. Send me a wire.”
“What about? Oh, I get you — a wire calling you back here. Will do. To-day? No — that’s too soon — might look fishy after your ringing me up. To-morrow?”
“You can read my thoughts,” I said.
“It’s all part of the personal service.”
A sudden screech sounded beside me and a voice not on the telephone said — “Oh God, it’s blood. Standish — darling — you’re covered with blood.”
My first reaction was fury. In spite of my obvious efforts to keep my conversation private, some female goon had had the damned impertinence to come right up to the telephone-box, almost into it. I turned to unleash upon her all the blistering sarcasm at my command only to find that she was, of course, my cousin Juliet, white faced and hysterical. Undeterred by my no doubt murderous scowl, she went on nattering about blood. The Myles woman stood placidly behind her.
“Darling, you do seem to have cut your wrist,” Kinky said. “You must do something about it.”
I looked at my wrist and saw that what I had thought to be sweat was indeed blood, though not in a quantity to warrant so much fuss about it. My sleeve was a bit soggy and I had scattered the odd drop or so about the place; I tucked the telephone receiver under my arm and wrapped a handkerchief round my wrist to cover what was no more than a little nick. I was still angry: to be able to see the blood those wretched girls must have come too bloody close.
“Thanks,” I said. “It can be seen to later. I’m busy.”
“You’re accident-prone, darling,” Kinky said smugly. “You must be a bad insurance risk.”
From the telephone I heard distantly the unmistakable sound of the three-minute pips and a voice, sounding like Donald Duck’s Uncle Scrooge in a frenzy, that must have belonged to Ivor Brewis; I went back to him.
“I must go,” I said. “This call is costing me the earth.”
“You can reverse the charges, if you like,” Ivor said nastily. “I heard women screaming. What goes on? Rape?”
“Certainly not. You didn’t hear me screaming.”
“Oh you!” He forbore to comment. “How’s Stella?”
“Wonderful. Even more so than usual.”
“Bring her back with you. You were a great team.” One thing seemed to lead him to another. “I hear Grace is in California,” he said.
I had heard that too, but the stamp on her letter was not an American one; my mind had taken in the fact without registering its import. Sometimes I wished that I had not made a point of talking about Grace to my theatrical friends as casually as they spoke of their ex-wives. Ivor had quite a few, scattered about the place from Hull to Haifa. He took them out to dinner — and probably to bed for the sake of auld lang syne — when they visited London; he would never have understood how I felt about Grace.
“She’s not in America now,” I said.
He went on as if I had not spoken. “Perhaps she’s going to marry that guy she was engaged to when you added her to your collection.”
“He’s not a Californian. He works at Harvard.”
“What’s a few thousand miles, or whatever it is, when two hearts beat as one? You still there?”
I was — but not for long. I said good-bye and slammed the receiver back on its cradle.
Save for Juliet’s hysterical outburst, the crowd had remained silent while I spoke; they did not, I supposed, want to miss any of what the insane wrecker of telephone-boxes had to say. It cannot have been often that a visitor put on such a good show so early in the day but I had no intention of abandoning the performance at that point; the show would go on. I was ready for a fight. If anyone were to suggest that I should pay for the broken glass, I was prepared to slap writs on all concerned claiming damages for the injuries that I had sustained. Searching for signs of hostility, I turned my glare from face to face and found only a rather soppy benevolence; by cutting my wrist, it appeared, I had become an object of sympathy.
“That box was nothing less than a booby-trap. I always said so.”
“ ’Tis a mercy the gentleman wasn’t killed.”
“Let someone ring for the doctor before he bleeds to death.”
Affairs of Death Page 9