by John Elliott
She filled a measure and poured it out into a tumbler then reached for some ice, but Sonny shook his head. ‘Straight’s fine.’ He took a mouthful and set the glass down. A burning sensation in his throat was followed by the taste of liquorice. He looked about him. A leathern shaker for poker dice stood at the end of the counter. Above it, fixed in a bracket, a small black and white TV set soundlessly relayed a boxing match.
The brunette said, ‘Would you like to play or have the sound turned on?’
‘No thanks. They’re not my style.’
The walls of the room were decorated in a kind of tartan wallpaper. The carpet, likewise, continued the motif of blues, reds and browns. ‘Mama Whisky! Hai!’ In these surroundings, it was easy to envisage other whisky glasses eagerly raised in an oh so similar mirror in a bar in downtown Yokohama during the days when the Company thought the future was Japanese and their traditional moon was multinational over the business parks and alleyways. Nights of toasting ‘us and us’ and ‘just in time’ in the more and more drunken unravelling of East and West until one night, on a TV set just like this one, a one-time surviving ‘block of wood’ shouted, ‘I recognise this man. It’s Dr Fukido. He was in charge of C Laboratory where they tested the vaccine in the camp.’ A regrettable incident in a no doubt blameless life of enterprise and philanthropy, but enough to turn his host for the evening’s spirits sour and render the rest of the de rigueur gaiety distinctly melancholy.
‘For we’ve lost our dear old momma and must have whisky or we’ll die.’ The words of the Brecht/Weill tune rang in his brain. And Ute Manoko? Certainly, he was unlikely to have been ‘a block of wood’—much more likely to have owned, or at least terrorised, dozens of whisky bars like Demel.
‘Similar please, Margie.’
The deep voice took Sonny by surprise. He had imagined himself her solitary customer.
‘I’ll bring it over, Emmet.’
‘Fetch some fresh water, too.’
She let the tap run for a moment, swilled out a small brown jug and partially filled it. Sonny watched her reflection carry it over, with a whisky bottle in her other hand, towards a booth at the other side of the room. Its occupant was screened from view by a smoked-glass partition, one of three, which gave a touch of privacy to the otherwise open space.
‘I’ve never known you take it,’ she said, as presumably the man added the water to his drink.
‘Indulge me, Margie. There’s always a first time and hopefully never a last one. Sit down and talk awhile. I’m sure the gentleman won’t mind. He can always yell out if he wants something. You’ve got a tongue in your head, haven’t you?’ he said more loudly.
As the last remark was clearly aimed at him, Sonny swivelled round. Margie remained standing, her head visible above the partition. ‘Yes, I’ve got a tongue,’ he said evenly.
‘You see,’ the Emmet person said, ‘everything’s going to be just fine. This man’s no trouble. He’s only popped in for a quiet drink. Isn’t that so, citizen?’
Something in the man’s tone alerted Sonny to a degree of edge and danger. The brunette, Margie, looked nervous, as though she would be far happier behind the bar than keeping her unseen customer company. She sat down. The man spoke in a lowered voice. Sonny turned to face the mirror, making sure he was not seen to eavesdrop.
While he paused over his drink, deeming it right that he should depart in his own good time, he heard the faint ghostlike ring of a telephone in another bar in yet another city. What was it Rosario had said to him on the morning he was due to leave Miranda? ‘You can’t escape from this world, Roberto.’ Then she had embraced him, ‘You might, however, escape within it.’ Tears had filled her eyes, her mouth half undecided between regret and a kind of resigned mockery.
‘C’est pour toi. Une femme.’
He took hold of the receiver from Georges, le patron, 6th October, 1954, Bar des Indes, Passage Habert, Lyon.
‘Allo, dites!’
‘Why, oh why, won’t you come? What will it take?’
She knew his childish secrets. She loved him as a sister should an elder brother, but to Veri his actions were incomprehensible. He was so near the frontier, only a matter of a few hundred kilometres from Orias itself.
‘You don’t know what you’re doing to me. Mother is going to pieces. After his stroke, Tian is like a child. Your place is here to help us. What gives you the right to punish everyone who loves you?’
‘Jolie voix, un peu comme,’ Georges hesitated, searching for the comparison, ‘comme la juliette de Jean-Christophe. Mirandienne?’
‘Bahoui, ma sœur, Veronica.’
The space. The intervening, unbroachable space between. The roads, the railway tracks, the air corridors leading eventually to the customs posts where the police uniforms changed, and although, at first glance, the earth, the fields, the trees looked the same, everything was different; the everything that was in the bone and beyond redemption or, at least, his redemption. He swallowed the rest of the whisky and got to his feet. His perfunctory goodnight went unacknowledged.
Outside it was still snowing. He waited for a caped cyclist to pass before recrossing the road. Two men came towards him; the first in a navy-blue parka with the hood up, the second, younger, with a thin khaki jerkin, his short fair hair glistening with drops of snow. Both of them afforded him a quick glance before striding purposefully on. What had they seen? Sonny wondered. A Greenlea citizen, as he had been recently called, on his way home, or a living ghost whose body happened to be in Kefoin Street, but whose emanation displaced in others strode down the streets of his long-deserted birthplace. Manolo, Iusebio, My Son, Paca. Why could he not let them rest as they deserved? They belonged to a past, a past which the present ignored, a past which long ago he should have cut adrift in the same way as Raul Sanchez (illustration p136), leaning over the gunwale, had hacked and sawed with his knife in his frozen and bloodied hands, at the rope which towed the filthy sack of booty, whose promise of untold wealth had destroyed his brother and rendered his shipmates mad. Even now, he thought ruefully, I drag up some spurious, half-remembered childhood book. Don’t fill these gaps, he told himself. Walk to the gallery and nothing more. Think of Elizabeth Kerry’s message if you must think.
He had reached the penultimate block of Kefoin Street. Lavell Place was on the right. A few strides down it, the Melo Gallery lay in darkness. No light shone behind its plate glass window. A notice was affixed to the door. It read, ‘Owing to end of temporary lease Transitory Images now at Cynara Room Berengaria Hotel.’
Sonny turned away and retraced his steps. This was the Old Station Yard all over again. If Kefoin Street had been served with any form of public transport, he would have called it quits and waited for a bus or tram. As it was, he kept a look out for a stray taxi, determined to hail it if it arrived before he regained the yellow arrow, but only an occasional private car went by. He trudged on. Nobody entered or came out of Demel when he passed it on the other side. Now the arrow was only a block distant. It seemed he was fated to persist and go. Where arrows pointed people were meant to follow, and he could use the opportunity to have a quick word with Harvard. He increased his pace, his eyes squinting into the blown flurries of slanting snow, and turned the indicated corner.
The lights of the Berengaria Hotel appeared blearily at the foot of the short cul-de-sac. In the foyer, people stopped their conversations and regarded his wet and snow encrusted figure, unaware till then of how heavy the fall had recently become. Still dripping, Sonny studied the board listing the day’s events. ‘Transitory Images’ was stated as now housed in the Cynara Room, which was situated in the basement. The Lorelei Suite on the second floor hosted Chance Company’s Twenty Years Exhibition.
After depositing his coat and cap with the cloakroom attendant, he made his way to the concierge desk. ‘Harvey Smith. Chance Company. Will you ring him please? He’ll be in the Lorelei Suite. I’m Mr Ayza from the same company.’
The man obliged then
handed him the phone. Sonny said quickly, ‘Good evening, Harvard. I trust things are going well. As I happen to be here, I thought we might have a chat.’
The sound of other voices, cut off as though a hand had been put over the mouthpiece, gave way to momentary silence before Harvard’s even tones replied. ‘You surprised me. Can’t you stay away from work? I hadn’t expected to see you until next week. What brings you here?’
‘Chance. A chance meeting earlier today and then a chance change of venue. I want to talk to you about the Albert Cresci Foundation. I’m on my way up.’
‘Hold on.’ There was another pause. Sonny was on the verge of adding Elizabeth Kerry’s name, but Harvard resumed. ‘Come up by all means. Better if we meet in hospitality though. I can give you five minutes. It’s room 274.’ The phone went down.
Sonny thanked the concierge and took the stairs. When he found room 274 the door was ajar. Harvard was alone. He gave Sonny a lugubrious stare. ‘I’m worried about you,’ he said. ‘It’s been very noticeable lately. If I didn’t know you better I’d say you were letting some of the details of our work prey on your mind. My advice is to take another week off. Do other things, Sonny. See other people. Drink?’
Sonny shook his head. Harvard replaced the cognac bottle he had picked up from the service table and subsided into an easy chair.
‘I’m not here to hold you up, Harvard. I just dropped in on my way somewhere else. Tell me about Cresci and I’ll be gone. We don’t need to get sociable.’
Harvard laughed. ‘You’ve got the damnest way of shoving your pecker into Christ knows what. Okay. Cresci was just a crackpot in a long line of crackpots trying to shaft the company. It’s old news, but some people can’t ever get enough snake oil. There was a lawsuit. He failed. End of story. Now, if you’ll forgive me, I have things to attend to. Think about what I said about taking more time off.’
‘I will, but what was Cresci’s petition?’
Harvard stood over him, shifting back on his heels. ‘Cresci claimed he had purchased Chance Company rights that covered the Midwest, if I’ve got it straight. Said it had been parcelled out, signed and authorised by Joe May. Of course, it collapsed in court. May had already been dead for several weeks by the time the so-called franchise exercise took place.’
‘And the Amadeo Cresci Foundation?’
‘Search me. A charitable organisation? Another guy called Amadeo Cresci? Names are names. We both know that. Now duty calls.’ He stepped past Sonny into the corridor. ‘Phone me in a week’s time. We’ll really talk then.’
In the lift going down to the basement, Sonny tried to pinpoint the reason for his boss’s unease. Was it simply the fact of him turning up uninvited or was it his questions about Cresci and the Foundation? Perhaps it had been an amalgam of the two. Anyhow, he felt justified in keeping the knowledge of Elizabeth Kerry’s connection to himself. There was no doubt Harvard was off balance about something, and he instinctively felt her message held the key.
When the lift doors opened, Sonny was surprised to find the entrance to the Cynara Room thronged with people. Some were energetically pressing their way inwards, while others protestingly shoved their way out. He edged his way to gain the inward stream, but as he did so a greater concerted outward push forced him back towards the lifts.
‘Been done before, of course, but invigorating nevertheless don’t you think?’
Sonny screwed his neck round to get a view of the speaker, whose voice sounded familiar. Elbows jabbed in his side. He gave up trying to compete against the prevailing tide and drifted rightwards until he finally managed to extricate himself from the crowd, which was now heading for the stairs. His body pressed uncomfortably against the wall, his eyes encountered the glistening bald head of Leo Manners. Manners’ mouth was fixed in a self-satisfied smirk. A young woman, who appeared to be with him, stood at his side. She was dressed in olive fatigue trousers with a similar coloured T-shirt covering her bra-free breasts. Her lightly freckled face was unadorned by make-up. Long dark hair swept back from her forehead was gathered in a plait.
‘I’ve just arrived. I haven’t had time to see anything.’
Manners’ smile grew more unctuous. He was obviously enjoying himself enormously. ‘That’s the whole point. There’s nothing in there to see. The walls are bare. Transitory images ha ha. I knew it would appeal to you, Mr Ayza, to your particular sense of fun.’ He turned to his companion. ‘Mr Ayza has kindly put some commissions my way from time to time. This is Emily Brown, Mr Ayza. We met earlier today. Another gallery as it happened.’
The young woman stared at Sonny with a curious expression. ‘Do we know each other, Mr Ayza?’
‘No, I’m sure we don’t.’
‘Emily’s recently returned to Greenlea. She’s been gallivanting all over the place. We thought she’d quite forgotten her dull old friends.’ Leo’s chirpiness continued unabated. ‘But how did you know this was on?’
A fresh wave of either newly disgruntled or satisfied art lovers surged out of the Cynara Room, chattering noisily and causing Leo and Emily to be pushed closer to Sonny.
‘I heard about it from a pavement artist at the Port Steps,’ he replied when they were able to retrieve their individual space.
‘Are they still there? How odd. Working from home these days I rarely get into the city centre.’
‘You have an unusual name,’ the young woman said. ‘I’m trying to place its origin. There can’t be many Ayzas here in Greenlea.’
‘Nor Emilys I would imagine. It’s not a first name you hear much nowadays. Miranda. I’m Mirandan.’
‘And what exactly do you do, Mr Ayza, apart from giving Leo commissions and attending deeply uninteresting exhibitions?’
‘I work for Chance Company.’
The aftermath of his statement sealed a momentary pocket of complicity in which Emily regarded him with a barely concealed sardonic smile and Leo puffed audibly, ‘Well. Well. There we are then.’
People by now were dispersing more freely. For the time being nobody else came down the stairs or out of the lifts. Leo took his cue and shook Emily’s hand. ‘I must dash. So nice to see you again, Mr Ayza.’
‘I must go as well,’ Sonny said, still wondering why Emily Brown was looking at him in such a strange manner.
‘A name for you before you leave,’ she said. ‘It’s Fernando Cheto Simon. A long time ago your mother sent his mother some of your drawings. Your given name is Roberto, isn’t it? They were very detailed small sketches. I came across some very like them in the back of a book.’
Sonny was stunned. Was it possible he was talking to Elizabeth Kerry in person? He tried to remember the exact intonations of her speech on the phone. ‘Which book? Where did you find it?’ he managed to utter.
‘In the flat you provided me with at Tara Village. Can we drop this pointless charade? Why do you think my father is here in Greenlea?’
‘You are a client? Emily Brown is a name you’ve been given?’
She nodded exasperatedly. ‘As you know, I’m Agnes Darshel and you are my Chance Company contact.’
‘I assure you I am not. As a matter of fact, I’m on leave at the present. I’ve never handled your file or heard anybody mention it.’
She regarded him fiercely, then, adjudging by his expression he was being sincere, said, ‘Until I met you just now I had a stupid thought,’ she paused, ‘a so ridiculous thought.’ Her eyes were moist. ‘What is happening?’
‘I don’t know. Why did you ask me about Fernando Cheto Simon?’
‘He was a kid I was reading about from a place called Llomera in Miranda.’
‘And he had something to do with a Batiste Cheto?’
‘His father.’
‘Where did you get this book? Was it there you saw my drawings?’
‘That was different. It’s not a book. It’s a kind of script account from some organisation called the Amadeo Cresci Foundation.’
‘We need to talk at length, Agnes. S
omewhere else more private. Do you trust me?’
‘Not entirely, if I’m honest. Listen, someone is waiting for me in the foyer. I’m already late. I wouldn’t have come down here if I hadn’t bumped into Leo. I must go. Give me a ring early tomorrow morning. No doubt you have the number.’
‘Better if we meet in person. Do you know the Belvedere?’
‘No, but I’ll find it. It will have to be the afternoon. 3.30 say?’
‘Meet me at the entrance. Don’t tell anyone else you’ve seen me.’
They walked up the stairs together. Agnes said, ‘My father’s René Darshel. Chance Company wrote to me and suggested that he was here in Greenlea.’
‘Sorry, I don’t know anything about him, but I do know it was a very unusual and irregular approach. Look, let me go on and collect my coat and check if anyone from the company is around. They’re holding a do upstairs.’
‘Yes, I’m going to it. It’s part of my mapped-out itinerary.’
Once in the foyer, Sonny scanned the sparse assembly: a man and a woman at reception, three women at a table having drinks, a thickset middle-aged black man sitting on a chesterfield, a knot of business types waiting at the lifts. Satisfied, he went to retrieve his coat and cap. ‘Ticket 74.’
The attendant retreated to the racks. ‘Three items,’ she said. ‘Coat, cap and a package.’ She proffered a large manila envelope. It was addressed: ‘Attention of Emily Brown.’
‘I didn’t leave this.’
‘No, sir. A woman came after you had gone and said you would take care of it.’
‘Is she still here?’
‘No. She left. Is there a problem?’
‘No problem.’
Sonny donned his coat, stuck his cap in the pocket and took the envelope across to Agnes who was standing beside the black man. She glanced at its front quickly, eased open the back flap and scanned the first two pages. ‘More about the Simon kid,’ she said. ‘No accompanying letter this time. Let me introduce my friend, Emmet Briggs. No doubt you’ll tell me you didn’t hire him to show me around.’