The White Mercedes

by Philip Pullman

  There was a roaring in Chris’s ears.

  ‘I can get him there tonight,’ he said. ‘I was going to finish off a job for him. I can phone him, arrange for him to come there.’

  ‘Brilliant,’ said Fletcher. ‘Magnificent. But please, Chris, don’t go there yourself. It’ll be dangerous. Say to him that you’ll meet him there at—let me see, how long will it take to get organised—ten o’clock should see everything in place. Is that too late? I mean, will that sound odd to him, you know, put him off?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so. I’ll tell him I’m going to finish the job at ten o’clock tonight, and can he come and check it. He might say no, it’s too late, or he might be busy. Or he might just not want to come. I can’t make him come.’

  ‘Course you can’t. Don’t worry about that. Say that to him, anyway. But don’t go there yourself. Let him walk into the trap. OK?’

  Chris nodded. He couldn’t speak.

  ‘How’s the time now? You better not be late back, they’ll want to know where you’ve been.’

  His hands curiously light and alien, Chris put the half-eaten apple into his lunch box and set Fletcher’s bottle of mineral water on the carpeted floor of the car. He felt privileged and full of fear. He felt as if Fletcher were the guardian of some high secret, like a priest at a shrine, and he was being initiated into the mysteries. It was the feeling he’d touched the edge of when he’d been arguing with Mike Fairfax, this sense of absolute truths, of great powers with names like Honour and Justice. He felt a spring of gratitude gush brightly in his heart.

  ‘Yes,’ he said to Fletcher. ‘I’ll do it.’

  —

  ‘Where’s Barry?’ he said to Tony an hour later. ‘Isn’t he coming in?’

  ‘He’s in the shop all day. Some problem with the accounts, I don’t know. Probably fiddling the VAT.’

  Chris went into the office and rang the shop.

  ‘Hello? Barry? It’s Chris.’

  ‘Hello, Chris, what’s the problem?’

  ‘No problem. I was just calling about the shed. I’ve got one section of plasterboard to finish and make good. I thought I’d do it tonight.’

  ‘Fine. You’ve done a great job, Chris.’

  ‘Listen, Barry—d’you think you could look in later on? About ten?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘ ’Cause I want to show you an idea I had. It’ll be ready about then.’

  ‘Actually I’m going out this evening. Playing squash in Abingdon, then I’m seeing this bloke…No, hang on, come to think of it, that’ll be fine. I’ll have finished by then. I’ll look in on the way home. OK?’

  ‘Great. See you later.’

  ‘Ta-ta, Chris. You’re doing a good job.’

  Thirteen

  Chris was wrong in thinking that Jenny hadn’t seen him when she came out of the shed with Barry. She had, but it had been like seeing a ghost. He seemed to be there for only a split second, and the surprise was so great, coming just after she’d been thinking of him, that she could scarcely breathe; but it was enough to register the anger, the disappointment, the loss in his expression before he turned away. A moment before, that surge of unexplained happiness, like a blessing, and now, like a curse, this apparition.

  She said nothing about it to Barry. He was full of his own preoccupations. Besides, she thought, he was too cheerful to understand.

  Next morning he took her to the shed, as they’d arranged, stopping to buy some more plastic curtain rails, enough for all the windows, and some readymade curtains. Later in the day, he said, he’d bring over some paint. She found she enjoyed the quiet of the woods; she’d been afraid that she’d find it oppressive, but she felt safe among the sunny trees, surrounded by the secret innocent life of birds and insects. At lunchtime (a can of beer from the fridge, a packet of crisps, a bar of chocolate) she found her way down to the canal, and was surprised beyond measure to see not only a heron, which she recognised, but a small brown animal swimming along by the bank and nosing its way into a tunnel. There was a whole world here. How strange not to have noticed it until so late!

  That afternoon, Barry came back with the paint and brushes, and she set about painting the plasterboard. He was right about its needing several coats; the paint sank at once into the porous surface. Still, it dried quickly.

  When he came to fetch her home, he said, ‘That last bit of plasterboard’ll be done by tomorrow. Oh, before I forget, how are you fixed for tonight, babysitting?’

  ‘OK,’ she said. ‘I’m not doing anything else.’

  ‘Sue’s got this evening class. Normally I’m at home meself but I’m going down Abingdon to see this bloke about scenery. They’re doing a play down there and they’ve hired some of our stuff and I’ve got an idea about a much bigger range. There’s a fantastic market, Jenny. Unbelievable demand. Not just plays and stuff, dramatic societies—we can help people think big as far as, you know, parties, weddings, discos—why not have a party on the moon? Eh? Or a disco on the Grand Canal in Venice? The sky’s the limit! Ready-painted scenery, lights, atmosphere, the lot. Bugger just bopping about under a strobe light or a glitter ball—unleash the imagination! We could have a full range, all ready to put up! And—and marquees, lanterns, effects, you name it…’

  As he drove her home he elaborated further, until the whole world seemed to be crying out for him to cover it in canvas and fantasy, while he got effortlessly richer and richer as his imagination burgeoned.

  —

  He’d already left when Jenny arrived at their house to babysit. Sean was in the bath, and Jenny sat in the kitchen talking to Sue.

  ‘Barry was telling me about his idea for scenery,’ she said.

  Sue rolled her eyes upwards. ‘Can you see anyone paying a lot of money to get married in a mock-up of Red Square or the Grand Canyon? I don’t know, I think he’s daft sometimes.’

  ‘Maybe not get married, but it might be fun at a party,’ Jenny said. ‘Depends how much it costs. But I suppose there’s plenty of people with money…’ She was thinking of Piers and his friends, though somehow she didn’t see that sort of person paying for that sort of thing.

  ‘Well…’ said Sue. ‘He seems to be doing all right, I mean financially, you know, the business. I thought it’d be touch and go when we came down here, but he seems to keep making money. I suppose I can’t complain.’

  ‘I should be so lucky.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Sue laughed. ‘Right.’

  ‘Where are you going tonight? In case, you know…’

  ‘Ah. There’s an evening class at the Poly. I shouldn’t really, I should concentrate on the OU work, but it sort of rounds it out…The number’s on the noticeboard by the phone.’

  ‘What’s the class about?’

  ‘Nineteenth-century women novelists. Honestly, Jenny, I feel like Educating Rita, I’m just learning so much, the world’s getting bigger all the time.’

  ‘Do they have classes on animals and birds and insects and stuff like that?’

  ‘Bound to. Here’s the book.’ She pulled a pamphlet from a shelf above the fridge.

  ‘And can anyone go?’

  ‘Anyone at all. There’s just so much to learn! I’ll go and chase Sean out of the bath…’

  While she was upstairs, Jenny looked through the pamphlet. It was true: there was an enormous amount to learn, and if you actually wanted to, and could choose what you wanted…She remembered Chris urging her to get some A levels and go to university. There might be a way there after all.

  ‘How’s the shed getting on?’ said Sue, coming in to gather up her books before leaving. ‘Oh, I know about it, don’t be surprised. I’m not supposed to’ve seen it yet, so I don’t know where it is, but you know Barry, he can’t keep a secret.’

  ‘Oh, it’s…I’ve been painting…There’s a bit of wall still to finish…’ Did Sue know about the man Carson, or not? Did she think the shed was just a place in the woods? Jenny was thrown off-balance, so she hardly heard what Sue said n
ext.

  ‘Chris is going to finish that tonight, Barry says. He’s going to look in there later, so I’ll probably be home before he is. Sean’s getting ready for bed—he takes for ever, I don’t know how he manages to spin it out. You OK, then? Coffee, milk—’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Jenny, ‘did you say Chris?’

  ‘Chris, yeah, nice boy, he works for Barry in the holiday.’

  ‘Is he—’ Jenny could hardly speak. ‘Is he tall, with thick sort of dark blond hair?’

  ‘Yes. And shy. Good-looking. D’you know him?’

  ‘Yes. I think so. If it’s the same one. I met him and—and then we lost touch because I didn’t know his surname or where he lived and I had to leave the place I was living in…Oh, God, I can’t hardly believe it…’

  Sue was looking at her curiously, or compassionately, or as if she was happy for her; but Jenny knew Sue’s mind was on the class, so she stood up and pushed the car keys into her hand.

  ‘Go on, you’ll be late!’

  ‘Jenny, what is it? You’re crying.’

  ‘I’m not! Honest!’

  ‘Well, what is it then, love?’

  ‘I just thought I’d never see him again, and suddenly…’ She shrugged, smiling, wiping her eyes. ‘I sort of imagined it, I sort of pictured…But I didn’t really think…Oh, go on, I’m fine, you’ll be late, don’t miss your class.’

  Reluctant, intrigued, Sue opened the door to leave, but then remembered something else.

  ‘Oh! I don’t know, life’s too complicated—listen, if the phone rings, leave it, don’t answer it. Barry’s bought an answering machine. Just let that take care of it. I don’t know, men and their toys…See you later.’

  Jenny waved from the doorway as the yellow Metro turned the corner. Then she went back inside, closed the door, and clapped her hands and gave a little involuntary jump of triumph. But almost at once the look on Chris’s face came back to her. He’d seen her coming out of the shed with Barry. He couldn’t have thought…She blushed to the roots of her hair.

  Still, he was going to be there working in the shed that very evening. And Barry would know his address. She could reach him. She could explain everything. It would be all right.

  Sean called from upstairs. She tried to clear her mind for the chess game he was bound to ask for, and got up. Her face kept breaking into a smile.

  —

  Chris couldn’t stop trembling. When he got home his mother asked him if he felt all right, was he getting flu? He snapped an answer, and thirty seconds later could no longer remember what he’d said to her. Mike Fairfax was reading the paper at the kitchen table with a pained expression. Suddenly Chris couldn’t bear his home any more.

  ‘I’m going out,’ he said. ‘I’m going to see Dad.’

  He said that because he knew it would affect them. In fact he didn’t want to see anyone. He checked his bicycle tyres and went out to ride around the ring road, hard, head down, till he reached Hinksey Hill in the south, where he turned off and climbed till his muscles burned and his lungs felt raw. But the hill wasn’t big enough. He needed mountains. He rode along the mile or so towards Boars Hill, down the other side, turned round and drove hard at the slope again. Back and forth he rode, six times altogether, till the ache in his muscles was genuinely uncomfortable; and then he threw himself into the long descent of Hinksey Hill, the curving sweep down between trees with glimpses of the city in the late evening sunlight, and out into the big roundabout that straddled the main dual carriageway road to Abingdon and the south. He didn’t touch the brakes once, but it wasn’t recklessness, it was despair.

  And nothing happened. The traffic was quiet. The bike freewheeled out of the roundabout, slowing down gradually, coming to a halt by the Volkswagen dealer’s next to the Park and Ride. The evening was calm and warm; it seemed to belong not to Oxford at all but to somewhere more southern, Mediterranean, and to another time.

  Chris wished he was there, or any other place where things were simpler.

  As he rode wearily up towards the city, he realised that he hadn’t once thought of Jenny since lunchtime. Maybe that was part of the price that Fletcher had spoken about.

  It was getting dark as he reached the city centre, just after nine o’clock. The place was thronged with foreign students, moving between the pubs and the hamburger bars, or simply drifting about in bored groups, smoking, staring. Chris cycled slowly down Broad Street past the lit-up windows of the bookshops and the bleak stone bulk of the Bodleian Library on the corner, and turned up to the left, towards home.

  But someone called his name from the pub across the road. There were people sitting on the pavement or standing outside with their glasses of beer, there was a crowd inside through the glowing window—who was it?

  ‘Chris!’ It was Dave, from the doorway.

  He got off his bike and walked it across the road. Dave was with a group of half a dozen others, and he looked as they did, happy and slightly drunk.

  ‘Wotcher,’ said Chris, glad to have a reason not to go home.

  ‘Have a drink. What you going to have?’

  Chris wasn’t old enough to drink alcohol in pubs, but he looked it. He accepted a pint of lager and sat down with them, curious with a part of his mind to see the friends of someone he knew from work. He hadn’t spoken to Dave much since the fight with Piers; the occasion hadn’t arisen. But he liked him, and it was pleasant enough to sit here on the warm pavement, with music coming out of the pub behind him and the throng of young men and women all around.

  One of the girls said to him: ‘Are you the person who had a fight at the Union?’

  Chris was glad it was getting dark, because the question made him blush.

  ‘Yeah. I think I must be. Does it show or something?’

  ‘No! Dave told us. Incredible. Molly, listen—this is the guy who had that fight, you remember?’

  ‘Oh, right!’ another girl said, looking at him as if he was a celebrity. ‘Wow!’

  Chris looked at Dave, who raised his glass, grinning.

  ‘Today the Oxford Union, tomorrow Las Vegas,’ he said.

  ‘Who were you fighting?’ said the first girl. ‘What was it about?’

  ‘It was pure animal fury,’ said Dave before Chris could reply. ‘There was no reason for it. This boy’s nature, ladies and gentlemen, is untamed and savage. He has the instincts of the panther combined with the strength of the giant anthropoid ape. Unprovoked, he is docility itself, but if you transgress the law of the jungle, he will leap at you in the twinkling of an eye, a snarling, clawing mass of steely muscle—’

  ‘Oh, piss off, Dave,’ said the second girl. ‘Just ’cause you’re too much of a wimp to get into a fight.’

  ‘I’m his manager! I’m not a wimp! I’ve got a really big cigar, look—somewhere…’

  While the others were laughing at Dave, the first girl said quietly, ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.’

  She was pretty. He would have liked to talk to her, but the time for that was past.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I suppose it was funny, really. I just made a mistake.’

  ‘What, you thought you were fighting someone else?’

  ‘Something like that. I’ve forgotten myself. I don’t always go round having fights.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen a fight,’ she said. ‘Not a real one. I don’t mean boxing matches.’

  ‘Didn’t they have fights at your school?’

  ‘I went to a terribly terribly posh girls’ school. We weren’t allowed to have fights. Daddy wouldn’t have paid the colossal bill if we came home covered in black eyes and scabs and things. The most we could do was cut each other to pieces with our razor-like sarcasm.’

  ‘Useful gift to have,’ Chris said. ‘I can never think of the right thing to say till about a week later.’

  ‘So you swing your fists. Take no notice of Dave, by the way. He’s drunk.’

  Dave himself said the same thing twenty m
inutes later, when Chris looked up to see him bleary-eyed a foot or so away.

  ‘Look, Christopher,’ he said carefully and clearly, ‘I want to apologise for discussing your private sorrows with this bunch of wastrels and strumpets. The fact is, I’m as drunk as a fish. It’s my birthday. Did I tell you that? Not many people can say wastrels and strumpets on their birthdays. I mean when they’re drunk. So I—what was I saying?’

  ‘About me and that stupid fight. But look, forget it, for God’s sake.’

  ‘Of course. It’s already forgotten. What’s forgotten? I don’t know, I’ve forgotten.’

  ‘Yeah, look, I’ve got to go. Thanks for the drink. Happy birthday.’

  ‘Oh, don’t go, don’t go. Did you have a nice time with the man in the car, the white Mercedes? What’s his name? Carson.’

  Everything stood still. For a moment or two there was perfect silence. Then Chris felt his knees buckle, and clutched at Dave for support.

  ‘What did you say?’ he heard himself whisper. ‘His name—what was it?’

  ‘Carson,’ said Dave. ‘He was hanging around yesterday looking for Barry. He said he was an accountant. I thought he was chasing him for tax or something. I told him for a joke that Barry was probably in his hideout. So he said, Where’s that? I’ll go and give him a surprise. I said I didn’t know. I said he should ask you, Chris is the boy you want, I said, Chris’ll tell you…’

  Chris couldn’t hear any more. He felt as if he were being burned at the stake: the roar of flames, a terrible weakness all along his limbs…What was the time? He shoved his way inside to look at the clock on the wall, through the cigarette smoke. It said half-past nine. And Fletcher-Carson had said ten, get him there by ten. Chris had never felt so helpless.

  The first girl, whose name he still didn’t know, said, ‘Are you all right? What’s the matter?’