Good Friends
Page 12
She reached for her phone and dialed.
“Aloha,” he said in that irritating way of his and she wanted to punch the phone’s red button.
But she said, “Home?”
“I am. The vulgar boatman was tardy.”
“But he came?”
“He came.”
She heard the sip and suck of him smoking and then he said, “And you?”
“Home too.”
“Is that dear little Beth Gibbons I hear warbling away?”
“It is.”
“And to think that once upon a time you were all about Britney Spears.”
“You schooled me well, sweetie,” she said.
“Sanded away the old rough edges, mnnn?”
“Each and every one.”
“I watched the dailies,” he said.
“And?”
“A stellar performance. If I didn’t know you better I’d swear you were enjoying yourself.” When she didn’t reply he said, “What am I picking up?”
“Hopefully nothing that a shot won’t fix.”
“You’re a scream.”
“That’s me.”
“Seriously,” he said, “you okay?”
“Peachy.”
“Wait. Wait. Don’t fucking tell me...”
“Tell you what?”
“Beachboy was the first, wasn’t he? After hubby went to the big cuckoo clock in the sky?”
“Now that’s just plain absurd.”
“Okay, then the first you liked?”
“Maybe.”
“Oh you poor baby. You’re feeling more than just sand chafe, aren’t you?”
She smoked her joint and said nothing.
“You’re human, darling. And, God knows, a woman.”
“Now please don’t you start singing Aretha Franklin,” she said.
He laughed. “You getting a little high?”
“I am.”
“Good.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m here, you know?” he said.
“I know you are.”
There was a pause and then he said, “It’s almost done. This thing.”
“I know it. You ready for tomorrow?”
“Oh yes. I’ll be as sweet as a Chinese bowtie.”
“I bet you will.”
“Okay, then,” he said.
“Okay,” Liz said and ended the call.
59
Caroline prowled the glass house trying to blind herself to the relentless beauty. It was like a taunt to her. She felt like a moral failure for her inability to exult in it.
She found herself wishing for gloomy skies and rain.
And, yes, even snow.
She was alone. Michael had gone to do whatever Michael did. Noey hadn’t come in today. That at least was a relief. The stolid, silent woman and her endless waing and bowing unnerved Caroline.
She brewed a cup of coffee—black, bitter—and sat on the sofa in the living room. She found a year-old copy of Tatler that had come with the house and skimmed puff pieces on British royals and society nabobs who spoke beautifully and made clever jokes and didn’t give the teeny-weeniest jot about anyone outside of their charmed circle.
Her phone rang. Unknown caller.
Caroline hesitated before answering.
“Yes?”
“Darling, it’s Charlie. Charlie Hepworth. How are you?”
Caroline almost laughed. It was as if she had conjured him from glossy pages of the pompous magazine.
“I’m fine.”
“Two things,” he said. “Firstly, the mobile number I gave you is no longer current.”
“Okay,” she said and heard the irate Thai man yesterday saying, “No Charlee! No Charlee!”
“And secondly, what are you up to this morning?”
“Not much,” she said.
“Well, it’s such a lovely day...”
“It’s always such a lovely day.”
“I know. Isn’t paradise tedious?”
He laughed and she felt her spirits lighten a little.
“What do you have in mind?” she said.
“Oh, just a little jaunt somewhere off the beaten track. Smelly sewers and gaudy temples and food that sets your tongue on fire. Definitely not bloody Central, is what I’m saying.”
“That does sound like fun.”
“Goody. Just one proviso.”
“What?”
“There will be not even a whisper about my little ailment. Agreed?”
“C’mon, Charlie—”
“It’s a deal breaker.”
She laughed again. “Okay.”
“Pinkie promise?”
“Pinkie promise.”
“Shall I pick you up in an hour?”
“Perfect.”
Caroline told him where she lived and ended the conversation feeling almost happy.
60
The last place Michael wanted to visit was the Patong eyesore, but he’d gotten a slew of messages the day before from Lars, the site supervisor. So here he was, wearing his hard hat, walking down through the milling Burmese.
Lars appeared, looking tired. No banter today.
“Apologies for being unreachable,” Michael said, “I had to fly up to Bangkok yesterday.”
“No problem. Just one or two things to sort out.”
“You okay, Lars?” Michael said.
“Hey, Mike, some days I just want to throw in all this shit, man. Go home to Jutland and fish in the ice.”
“Then why don’t you?”
“Two ex-wives and three damn kids is why.”
“Sorry.”
“Yeah.”
“Hey American!”
Michael turned to see Andrei, the thuggish Russian, bearing down on him.
“Oh, Jesus,” Lars said. “This asshole I do not need.”
“Hey American fucking idiot,” the Russian said.
He stood too close to Michael, who looked up at him, hands on hips.
“I’m still waiting for that email, Andrei.”
“No. Fuck email. You come look. Now. Come.” Andrei turned and walked toward the site. When Michael didn’t move, he turned. “I say come.”
“Get out of here, Mike,” Lars said. “This dickhead is already wasted. Sorry man, we’ll pick it up later.”
Michael shook his head. Then he turned and walked back toward his car.
“American pussy,” The Russian shouted. “Little pussy! Little pussy!”
The painted Burmese watched inscrutably.
Michael reached his car and pressed the key chain and unlocked the door. As he threw his hard hat inside he was back on the beach with Liz Keller riding him, and then he was standing over his wife who lay bleeding and broken in the snow and he felt a self-loathing so deep and searing that it demanded an immediate remedy.
He turned and walked back toward the giant Russian who was still goading him.
Lars saw his face and blocked his path. “No, Michael. No, man.”
Michael stepped around him.
Andrei laughed and said, “Ah, pussy come back.” He made kissy sounds. “Come pussy, come pussy.”
Michael was in a place beyond thought, but he knew this was not a man you used fists on, so he kicked the Russian in the balls.
The big man’s mouth formed a perfect operatic O and he sagged, but didn’t fall.
Michael kicked him in the right knee and heard the patella crack like crockery.
This put the Russian down, and his hard hat rolled off, exposing a head of coarse black curls.
Michael knelt and grabbed him by the hair and smashed his face into the brick pathway. It felt good so he did it again.
And again.
Andrei’s nose broke and blood and teeth speckled the paving.
Michael was going in for another smash when a scrum of Burmese got hold of him, dragging him off the Russian, pinning him down on his back. He felt like Gulliver.
Michael panted and his eyes swam with sweat and adrenalin.
Michael raised his hands in surrender.
“Okay,” he said. “Okay.”
The Burmese released him and he stood.
“Go, Mike,” Lars said. “We’ll say he fell. His ego is too big to admit a smaller guy kicked his ass.”
“I don’t give a shit.”
“Sure. But just go, okay?”
Michael nodded and wiped his face on his sleeve and went to his car.
He cranked the aircon to its maximum and drove away. Somehow he got to the bottom of the hill. He pulled the Mercedes under a tree and took water from a cooler and drank a bottle dry.
His shirt was as wet as if he had been swimming.
When last had he fought?
He couldn't remember. Probably high school.
Middle school, even.
He sat for a while and watched the surf and then he reached for his phone and dialed Caroline’s number.
He wasn’t sure yet what he wanted to say, but he knew the right words would come when he heard her voice.
Her phone went to voicemail.
61
Caroline felt like she were in a Fellini movie.
Riding on the back of a Vespa, clutching Charlie Hepworth around his skinny middle, charging through gridlocked cars fuming on the bubbling blacktop.
It was terrifying and exhilarating.
When she’d heard the whirr and pop of a motorbike in her driveway she’d thought it was Noey. But when she’d looked out the window she’d seen Charlie astride a crème scooter that even she knew was vintage.
Caroline opened the door and he beckoned, “Come on, my lovely. Let’s go.”
“On that thing?”
“But of course. Only an idiot drives a car on this damned island.” He covered his mouth. “You drive, don’t you?”
“Not here, no. Here I am driven.”
“Of course you are,” he said. “Come, it’s quite safe.”
“I doubt that.”
She flashed on yesterday’s traffic atrocity and then wiped it from her mind.
“Okay, but it’s a lot of bloody fun,” he said. “Tie a scarf around your pretty head and let’s go.”
“No helmets?”
“God, no. They’re hot and heavy and profoundly useless.”
So she’d obeyed him, tied a scarf under her chin, slung her bag over her shoulder and they’d sped off.
Charlie took her to a place she’d never been before. A quarter of narrow streets lined with two-storey Sino-Portuguese style shophouses, painted in vivid pinks, blues and greens.
He parked the Vespa and walked her into a narrow passage selling clothing and food.
“If anything catches your eye let me know and I’ll do the bartering,” he said.
But she was content to walk, and take in the sights and the smells of jasmine, coconut and lemongrass. Her leg felt good, and he was considerate, keeping to a sedate pace, and stopping frequently to browse.
Her phone rang and she saw it was Michael and let it go to voice mail.
“Hubby?” Charlie asked.
She dragged down the side of her mouth. “Is it that obvious?”
“Everything okay?” Charlie asked.
“Fine.”
“Sorry, I’m being indelicate.”
“Yes, you are.” But she smiled away the reprimand.
They had to duck around the jutting selfie sticks of a throng of florid, sweating tourists who yelled at each other in some guttural Mittel-European language.
Charlie shook his head. “Why, oh why, do the wrong people travel, when the right people stay at home?”
“Who said that?”
“Well, I just did. But Noel Coward said it first.”
She laughed and he threaded his arm through hers and they strolled along like a couple of carefree flâneurs.
62
Michael drove across the island. He had a meeting near the airport that he couldn’t cancel. There was no way to avoid the road that ran north south, and it was as clogged as a diseased artery.
He drank water.
He listened to REM which normally soothed him.
Not today.
His car was stalled in the traffic outside a garish temple, with a tiered roof of orange, green, red and gold. The ornate gates were protected by dragons with lolling tongues. Inside shaven-headed monks shuffled along in their saffron robes.
A motorbike squeezed past him. The passenger, a young woman in a crimson uniform, sat sidesaddle, texting on her giant phone. She smiled up at Michael and he saw she wore bright pink cosmetic braces.
His cell rang and he was ready to greet his wife, but it was Liz Keller.
He almost let it go, but a stab of unease made him answer.
“Liz.”
“Michael, can you talk?”
“Briefly.”
“I’d really like us to meet.”
“Why?”
“Yesterday was... ill-considered.”
“Yeah, it was.”
“So I’d like us to get together and find a way to normalize the situation.”
Michael heard the sound of a match flaring and little sucks and puffs. He remembered kissing her and how she had tasted of weed and nicotine and alcohol.
“I’m pretty busy today,” he said.
“I don’t want to let what happened screw up a potential working relationship.”
“We’re both adults, Liz.”
“Yeah, that’s the problem. With all the moving parts.”
Despite himself he laughed.
“Michael, have a drink with me at Blues at five.” When he hesitated she said, “Please.”
“Okay,” Michael said.
“Till later then.”
As he ended the call Michael caught a glimpse of himself in the rearview and saw that he had a fine spray of blood, like freckles, across his nose and his left cheek. He unfolded the handkerchief from his pocket and wet it with bottled water and dabbed at his face. The white cloth came away pink.
63
Charlie sat with Caroline doing what he did best: lying through his bloody teeth.
They were at the type of sidewalk eatery he preferred, with scuffed plastic tables and chairs and the regulation spirit house.
Caroline had offered to buy him lunch, and he could see her eyeing one of the hideous tourist traps with their ornate shutters and polished wooden furniture. But he’d steered her to this nameless place and ordered a little cornucopia of fragrant food in Thai.
She eyed with suspicion some of the dishes that were difficult to identify, and he smiled and said, “Don’t worry, this isn’t China. We’re not eating Fido.”
Laughing, she shrugged and tasted a mouthful of kanom jeeb, steamed dumplings in soy. She closed her eyes in appreciation and ate more with gusto.
In another life he could’ve grown to like her.
She was soft and spoiled, but she had suffered, too, and that had seasoned her. Made her a bit more interesting than just another Waspy little hausfrau.
Not that it would change anything.
“So tell me about yourself, Charlie,” she said, spearing a forkful of Pad Thai.
“Not much to tell.”
“Oh, come on. Spill. Tell me about your family.”
“Well, my father was a financier,” Charlie said. “He died of a heart attack over port and cigars at his Mayfair club.”
His father had been a gang enforcer who’d been shivved to death in Holloway prison.
“My mother was terribly religious. High church Anglican. She found it impossible to reconcile her beliefs with my sexual predilections.”
Charlie had never known his mother. He’d been raised by his paternal granny, who had led him to believe she was his mother. She’d serviced her gentlemen callers in her squalid Newham council flat while he’d watched Blue Peter on the telly.
“Sounds so Victorian,” Caroline said.
“
Positively Dickensian,” he thought, but said, “Long ago and far away, my darling.”
She frowned and said, “But now, with your condition—”
He wagged his finger. “No, no, no. We had a deal, remember?”
She was about to argue when her phone rang and she glanced at it and got that apologetic look.
“Take it,” he said.
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely. Put poor hubby out of his misery.”
***
Caroline stepped away from the table and said, “Michael?”
“I love you,” he said.
She was lost for a reply and he said, “Are you still there?”
“Yes, I’m here. Are you okay?”
“Yes,” he said.
“You sound a little raw.”
“I’ve been thinking.”
“Okay.”
“About us.”
“Yes?”
“Yeah. And I want things to be better.”
“Michael?”
“Yes?”
“Let’s talk later. I’m with someone.”
A pause and then he said, “Who?”
“That British guy I met at the hospital. We’re having lunch.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah. So...”
“Let’s have dinner tonight, okay? I’ll get reservations for somewhere good.”
“Okay.”
She pocketed her phone and went back to Charlie, who swung his leg and pushed his hair away from his forehead.
“All blissful?” he said.
“Maybe.”
“Must be nice,” he said.
“What?”
“Having someone to come home to.”
“You’ve never had that?”
“I’m not a domestic animal, darling. More of a predator.” Then he smiled winningly and said, “How about something sweet? I could murder a mango and sticky rice.”
64
Michael almost didn’t recognize Liz Keller when she slid onto the barstool beside him. Her hair was pulled back into a short ponytail, and she wore heavy make-up—eyeliner, blush and red lipstick. She was dressed in a mannish gray jacket over a dark shirt and black jeans,
How had he ever thought she resembled his wife?