Spring

by David Szalay

  Now, Melissa told James, he was indeed in a cell in Thamesmead Police Station, awaiting trial for a number of quite serious offences. Her parents had been to see him. A solicitor had appeared from somewhere. Michael himself seemed to be in a state of shock—­he had not said a word since the police found him sitting next to the toilet, pathetically nursing his hurt arm.

  ‘He’s got an appointment with the psychiatrist this afternoon,’ Melissa said.

  ‘The psychiatrist?’ James said, starting to understand that this was probably the end of Professional Equine Investments.

  There was however one loose end—­Absent Oelemberg. To­gether, he and Freddy own half the horse. The other half is owned by her trainer, Simon Miller, who Freddy met in a Fenland pub one Saturday last November. Freddy told him he had owned horses in the past (which he hadn’t), and Miller, who was not totally sober, said that one of his owners had just died, an old fellow name of Maurice something. He had owned a half share in an ex-­French mare in the stable and, if Freddy was interested, the heirs were looking to sell. When Freddy said he was interested, Miller went further and hinted that he was hoping to land a ‘nice little touch’ with the horse, who had not yet run in the UK.

  The next morning, Freddy phoned James. He told him that he, Freddy, had an inexpensive opportunity to own a horse in training with ‘one of the top jumps trainers in the country’.

  ‘Who’s that then?’ James sounded sceptical.

  ‘Simon Miller,’ Freddy said. He was using his this-­is-­serious-­now voice. ‘We have to move fast on this, though.’

  ‘We… ?’

  ‘Miller wants ten grand for a half share.’

  ‘A half share? Who owns the other half?’

  ‘Miller does. He says he wants to hold on to half himself. He knows what he’s doing. He’s pretty shrewd,’ Freddy said. ‘And there’s something else. You’ll like this. He’s hoping to land a touch with her early next year.’

  Freddy explained what Miller had told him in the pub the night before. Miller had been so drunk that it had taken a long time for Freddy to work out what he was saying. Essentially it was this: Absent Oelemberg was a smart ex-­French mare—­‘a useful tool’ was the expression Miller had used, slurring it so egregiously—­eryoofustoowil—­that at first Freddy had not even been able to make out what the words were, let alone what he meant by them. What he seemed to mean was a horse who would win her share of handicaps. Freddy had pretended to know all about the handicapping system, and fortunately Miller was much too drunk to notice that he had had to explain it to him from first principles himself. His plan for Absent Oelemberg was to ensure that she did not show her true ability in her first few races—­she would then be assigned a handicap mark which was too low, from which she would therefore be able to win easily. And since she would have performed so poorly until then, the odds available on her in her first handicap would be very long. Thus you would have a horse at very long odds who you knew would win easily.

  ‘Well?’ Freddy said expectantly.

  For some time, James said nothing. Thoroughbred ownership was an interesting prospect. On the other hand, this was Freddy on the phone on a Sunday morning, sounding like he was still drunk, with a proposition put together with a very drunk stranger in a pub the night before. It was not exactly investment grade. Not exactly triple-­A. And James would unquestionably have said no, were it not for the embellishment of the touch. What Freddy understood was that James would see the touch as something he would be able to use for Professional Equine Investments.

  Still, he slept on it.

  Then the next morning he phoned Freddy and said he was prepared to put in his share.

  And Freddy said that actually he would have to put in the whole £10,000 because he—­Freddy—­was skint at the moment. He would pay James back with his winnings, he said, when the touch went in, and since it had been Freddy who found the opportunity in the first place, when he had let him sweat for a few days, James lent him the money.

  They went up to Cambridgeshire the following Sunday and stood in the stable yard, trying to look as if they knew what they were doing, Freddy fiddling with a hip flask, while Miller’s ‘head lad’—­despite the youthful-­sounding moniker, a middle-­aged man—­led the mare out of the stables and into the middle of the slurry-­puddled, straw-­strewn yard. She seemed fine—­that is, there was nothing obviously wrong with her. She was quite unusual-­looking. The visual effect was of a blackish-­blue flecked with snow. And she was surprisingly small. She shook her head, tinkling the tack.

  It was a frosty morning, and they were tired. Miller had insisted on meeting at eight. He stood there, taciturn, small eyes sly under a tweed peak, watching them while they watched the mare. (Ladylike, she lifted her tail and let fall a small heap of shiny manure.) He had been suspicious of Freddy at first. The morning after their meeting in the pub, up at half five as usual and monstrously hungover, he had sworn at himself for speaking so freely to a stranger—­a stranger, what’s more, who had plied him all night with whisky and pints, while finding out more and more about his operation on the pretext of being a potential owner. That was what all the snoopers said. If something seems too good to be true, he told himself, his head throbbing as he watched the lads and lasses take the string out—­it was a foul winter morning of horizontal sleet, not properly light yet—­it probably is. And that this funny-­looking posh fellow from London would just show up and pay £10,000 for a half share in the mare did seem too good to be true. And yet here he was, a week later, with his mate, and the money.

  ‘What d’you think?’ Simon said, eyeing them.

  James stuck out his lower lip and nodded appraisingly. Freddy had a nervous swig from his hip flask.

  The transaction transacted, they went into the house and had a heart-­stopping fry-­up prepared by Mrs Miller. It was an awkward meal. When James asked about the name Absent Oelemberg—­what did it mean?—­Miller just shook his head and said, ‘No idea.’

  ‘It’s probably French,’ James suggested politely.

  Miller shrugged and went on feeding his smooth, fat face.

  In London, Michael was being arrested.

  The mare’s first run was in late December, in a novices’ hurdle at Huntingdon. (Though Professional Equine Investments no longer existed, and she would have to be sold, James had decided to land the touch first. Now that the service had failed he needed the money more than ever. He would be staking every penny he had on her, and he hoped to win enough to live on for a year or more, while he worked out what to do next.) Huntingdon was Miller’s local track. He had informed his new owners that it was where the touch would take place in March, and he wanted her to have run poorly there on at least one previous occasion. He also said that they should ‘have a few quid on’. When they looked at him in surprise, he said, ‘She won’t be winning. Not today.’ He said they should put the money on over the Internet, where it would leave indelible traces, so that when it was time to land the touch, if the stewards had any questions, they would be able to prove that they always followed her, win or lose. And in December she did lose. In the leathern privacy of his Range Rover, Miller had told them she wasn’t fit, and she looked unhealthily exhausted as she trailed in last with her tongue lolling out of her smoking head and the jockey standing up in his irons. His name was Tom. He was a stable insider, the son of Miller’s head lad. Later, in the pub—­not the nearest pub to the track, an obscure village pub twenty miles away somewhere in the stunning flatness of the Fens—­James noticed him whispering something to Miller, who nodded and patted him on the back.

  Her next run was two weeks later, also at Huntingdon. She was twenty to one that day (James still had his few quid on) and she finished tenth of twelve. Miller was not keen to talk about what measures he was taking to make sure she performed so ignominiously, and anyway James had other things on his mind, or one other thing—­Katherine, who he met at Toby’s wedding. The previous night he had taken her on th
e lamplit tour of the Sir John Soane Museum in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and then for dinner. It was nearly midnight when he walked her to the tube at Holborn. (She had declined an invitation for a nightcap at his flat.) They stopped on the pavement at the station entrance.

  ‘Well…’ he said. ‘I hope…’

  ‘Can I kiss you?’

  It was so sudden that he just said, ‘M-­hm,’ and she stood on tip-­toe and kissed him wetly on the mouth.

  A few moments later the Saturday-­night hubbub of station and street swam back. ‘I’ll see you next week,’ she said.

  ‘Okay…’

  She went into the lightbox of the station, and he watched her through the snapping ticket barriers.

  The next morning he was up early to take the train to Huntingdon.

  The mare had not run since that murky January day. There was a scare when the meeting at which her final prep run was supposed to have taken place, at Fakenham, was abandoned due to waterlogging. That was while he was in Marrakech. Miller had said he would enter her for something else.

  ‘Fontwell, Wednesday,’ Freddy says.

  ‘Fontwell?’

  ‘It’s in Sussex.’

  ‘I know. What race?’

  Freddy shrugs. ‘He did tell me,’ he says. ‘Some novices’ hurdle. Do you want to get something to eat? A kebab?’ There is a kebab place on Earls Court Road that Freddy particularly likes. He is on first-­name terms with Mehmet and the others there.

  ‘No, I can’t,’ James says, looking at his watch.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I have to meet someone.’

  5

  He has been waiting for this moment, the moment when he sees her, for nearly a week now. She is already there, sitting at a small table with a vodka and tonic. And something is up—­when he tries to kiss her she moves her head to the side, though not enough to prevent their lips from smudgily touching. She seems unnaturally still, except for her eyes, which are nervously mobile. When he touches her she hardly seems to notice. There is, however, something strangely playful about all this. There is something strangely playful about the impish S-­shaped smile which sits in her small lips while he talks. That is probably why he is not worrying, not even about her visitor of yesterday night, whoever he was. Why he is even enjoying it. Why it is even exciting him. There is even something playful about the way that she will not let him kiss her on the mouth. Whenever he tries—­and leaning towards her, he tries often—­she smiles and turns her face away. They stay in the pub for two drinks—­she has another V & T—­and then she says she wants to get something to eat and they walk to a noodle place she knows on Upper Street.

  There, things are less playful. She seems sadder. She drinks water. They share a platter of fried pastry parcels. They each have a deep bowl of soupy noodles. They still only talk about insignificant things—­for some reason, he is explaining to her how the stock market works. Though she lets him take her hands in his, she looks down at her empty soup bowl when he does. He notices her rosy, tattered cuticles—­they are even worse than usual. Her hands are usually a fiery pink, weathered by soap and water, wrinkled on the knuckles, the nails snipped very short. So different from her feet, which he has told her more than once are the prettiest he has ever seen—­small and smooth, with soft pretty toes, and the same even ivory hue all over.

  When he tries to kiss her, she turns her head away again. There is nothing playful about the way she does it now, and for the first time he looks pained and says, ‘What is it?’

  Instead of answering, she asks him whether he wants to see the photos she took in Morocco.

  ‘Of course,’ he says.

  Outside he puts up the umbrella. They have to squeeze together to fit under it. They have not been in such proximity all evening and he smells the faded scent of the perfume—­so familiar a smell, lingering in woollens—­that she put on in the morning when she went to work. It is only a short walk to her flat. They have made this ingress together many times. They know what to do. He shakes out the umbrella and takes off his shoes. She turns on some lights and starts to make mint tea. When he puts his arms around her, however, she looks at him quizzically, as if it is something he has never done until that moment. ‘Why won’t you kiss me?’ he says.

  ‘I just won’t.’

  ‘What do you mean you just won’t?’

  She leaves the kitchen with the mugs.

  ‘What do you mean you just won’t?’ he says, sitting down next to her on the sofa. When he tries to, she sucks in her lips and shakes her head. She laughs, and lets herself flop over to the side, so that she is half-­lying there. ‘I don’t understand,’ he says, leaning over her. ‘What is it?’

  Looking up at him, her eyes move like insects on the surface of a pond, with quick little movements, this way, that way, unable to stay still. ‘Why don’t you ask me some questions?’ she suggests.

  ‘What sort of questions?’

  She shrugs with mock secretiveness and for a moment makes her eyes very wide.

  ‘What sort of questions?’ he says again.

  She sighs, and lets her head loll on the velvet of the sofa. He is looking at her face from a strange perspective, more or less up her nostrils. She is looking up into the tasselled pink lampshade on the table next to the sofa. ‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘Just…’

  ‘What?’ he says quietly. ‘What is it? Tell me.’

  She does not tell him. She pushes him off her and says, ‘I’m going to get ready for bed.’

  ‘Okay,’ he says, propped on an elbow. ‘I’ll watch you.’

  ‘If you want.’

  ‘I do.’

  He follows her upstairs. There, however, she takes her pyjamas from under her pillow and leaves him on his own. Eventually he lies down and stares at the ceiling. That this has something to do with the man who was here last night is obvious—­it was obviously a significant visit, and if it was significant, he is pretty sure he knows who it was. In her pyjamas now, she takes a hairbrush from where her things are laid out—­her perfumes and make-­up, her lacquered pots of junk jewellery—­and starts to sweep her hair. She holds it out to the side and sweeps it vigorously. ‘Are you going to stay?’ she says, lifting the duvet on her side.

  ‘I’ll stay for a while. Hugo’s at home. Otherwise I’d stay the night.’

  ‘M-­hm.’

  They lie there for a few minutes in the lamplight—­her under the duvet, him fully dressed on top of it. Then he jumps up, takes everything off and joins her underneath. His eagerness, maybe, makes her laugh kindly. ‘You like being naked, don’t you,’ she says. ‘I saw Fraser yesterday.’

  To hear her say it is surprisingly painful.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You know?’ she says, sitting up.

  ‘I heard him. When we were talking on the phone.’

  ‘You heard him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What did you hear?’

  He tells her.

  ‘Why didn’t you say something?’

  ‘I didn’t know it was him. I didn’t know who it was.’

  He tells her that he noticed the way she lost the thread of what they were saying on the phone, that he heard the tension in her voice. She laughs when he tells her these things. And the way he tells them is meant to be funny—­it is meant to turn the whole thing into a harmless farce—­and he laughs too. She says, ‘I’m so sorry, James. It was so unlucky he walked in just when I was talking to you. I heard the doorbell and I had this whoosh of adrenalin, and then when I heard him talking to Summer, I wanted to hear what they were saying. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry if I sounded tense. I’m sorry it was so obvious.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ he says, still quite lightly.

  Then, ‘Why was he here? What happened?’

  She sighs and flops onto the pillow.

  Overhead there is an old-­fashioned ceiling fan with wicker blades—­like something from a tropical hotel, pre-­air conditioning. It was there w
hen she moved into the flat. She never uses it, does not even know if it still works. ‘He phoned me in Morocco. The day we were supposed to go to the mountains. That morning.’ She says they hadn’t spoken for a year, that she was surprised and upset. ‘I mean it was upsetting,’ she says. ‘He said he was just phoning to say hi. I said I was in Morocco. He wanted to know what I was doing there. I said I was with someone and told him to leave me alone. That was it. I was upset, though. I’m sorry if I seemed… upset. Or out of sorts or something.’

  Lying on his back with his left arm under his head, he puts his other hand pensively inside her pyjama trousers and strokes her pubic hair. ‘That’s okay,’ he says.

  He is trying to remember that day. Exactly a week ago. The hour at the poolside, the warm wind stirring the line of palm trees, the shadow of the hotel on the water…

  ‘I thought you went to the mountains,’ he says.

  Surprisingly, she laughs. ‘No, of course not.’

  And that night, the terrace on top of the hotel in the Nouvelle Ville, over the thick smog of the town. The hotel turned out to be a sort of whorehouse. They saw one of the men who worked in their own hotel making for the lift and its full ashtray with two fat whores… Yes, she had been upset. He thought she was upset with him for making them miss the minibus to the mountains, and then taking her to a whorehouse. In fact, it had been something else entirely. Nothing to do with him.

  She says, ‘A few days ago he phoned me again. He said he wanted to see me. I told him I didn’t want to see him. He insisted. He said he had something to say. So yesterday we went for a drink.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He said… he wants to try again.’

  They lie there in silence.

  ‘And what did you say?’

  ‘I said… I said… I said I’d think about it.’

  She turns her head on the pillow. He is just lying there, staring straight up. ‘Are you crying?’ she says softly.

  He shakes his head.

  ‘I said I’d tell him within a week,’ she says.

  He is seeing the ceiling fan with a strange intensity. It is as if the whole world has shrunk to that old fan—­its off-­white wicker blades, its thick stalk, the plastic housing of its motor, and the weighted string of tiny stainless-­steel spheres that hangs from the housing.