Fascinated

  ‘Roast in hell, sucker!’ sniggers the voice in his pocket.

  ‘Fine!’ Larkson looks pleased and slaps the belly of his mock-pigskin briefcase. ‘Can we talk tomorrow?’

  Frank salutes the question with a wave of his hand.

  ‘Have you been away?’ says Larkson, hoisting the raincoat over his shoulder. He loiters. He frowns. His eyebrows look stencilled above the horn-rims.

  ‘I took a few days,’ admits Frank.

  Larkson nods and smiles goodnight, creeps away with the briefcase held against his chest, cradled like a sleeping child.

  Bassett’s private office is a large room furnished in chrome and black leather with an oatmeal carpet on the floor. The blinds have been drawn against the windows to shut out a view of rooftops and rain. The captain’s table stands at the far end of the room, bathed in the butter-coloured light from a heavy brass lamp. Behind the desk a serving trolley with wire shelves serves as a cocktail cabinet. The walls are decked with the framed awards and qualifications beloved of pint-sized tycoons. President of the Plum Crazy Club, 1990. Award of Excellence from the Brazilian Mango Shippers Association, 1985. Guava Guild Order of Merit, 1987. Chairman of the World Candied Fruit Peel Conference, 1979.

  Frank slips into the room like a thief, pressing the door shut behind him. The President of the Plum Crazy Club (retired) sits at his desk, his face in a circle of yellow light, his mouth puffed out like a man sucking pebbles.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’ he barks at the intruder. He doesn’t look in the least surprised to find Frank standing before him. He spreads his fingers out on the edge of the desk and taps out a tune with his fingernails. ‘Why don’t you answer the phone, for God’s sake! Jessie must have called you at least a dozen times.’

  ‘Drop dead, punk!’ shouts the quick-tempered pocket oracle.

  Frank hesitates. He wants to vault across the room and knock Bassett from his chair. But the moment is lost, Bassett already has the advantage and there’s too much oatmeal carpet between them.

  ‘Is she all right?’

  ‘Jessie? Fine. But you’ve got to talk to her. She needs to know what you’re planning to do about the marriage. You must have guessed that she wants a divorce.’ He pauses, waiting for Frank to make pitiful protests. Nothing happens. He tries again. ‘Why don’t you come to some arrangement? Sell the house and share the money. Maybe give her a small allowance. Whatever you think. I won’t interfere. But if you want a fight, then I’m warning you, Frank, the way the law works they’ll have the shirt off your back.’

  ‘I don’t care what happens,’ says Frank, pushing away from the door, moving deeper into the room.

  ‘That’s not the answer, dammit! She wants to get into the house. She needs her clothes. She’s entitled to claim a few personal effects.’ He stops playing the piano with his fingernails and bangs his fists on the desktop. The lamplight flickers. The diary flutters its pages.

  ‘Kiss goodbye to your kidneys, wise guy!’ growls the voice in Frank’s pocket.

  ‘Tell her to help herself,’ says Frank.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Whenever.’

  ‘Tonight?’

  ‘It makes no difference to me. I haven’t been back to the house since she left,’ says Frank, edging closer to his prey.

  ‘Where are you staying?’

  ‘None of your damn business!’ shouts Frank.

  ‘None of your damn business!’ shouts the devil in his pocket.

  Bassett begins to look uneasy. This doesn’t feel right. Frank should have come here to plead with him for the safe return of his wife. He should be wailing and gnashing his teeth. What’s wrong with the fool? Doesn’t he care what’s happening? Does he like the idea of another man groping inside his wife’s pants? Does he enjoy this humiliation? Bassett feels insulted. He expects the game to be played by the rules. He demands law and order in his life.

  ‘Whaddya want?’ he says suspiciously as Frank stops in front of the desk. ‘You think I’m going to let you work here again? Forget it! I don’t need you creeping around like Marley’s ghost, wringing your hands and sobbing into your sandwiches. You’re fired. That’s official. And there’s no golden handshake. Jessie walked out on you and you walked out on me. That’s fair and square.’

  He leans back, tilting his chair, and plants his feet on the captain’s table. He rocks himself gently, clasping his hands to the back of his neck. His eyes flit from the shine on his shoes to the gloss of sweat on Frank’s face.

  ‘I know how you feel, Frank. Believe me. She’s a lovely girl and it’s tough when a marriage doesn’t work out. But it’s finished. Finito. You’ve got to face up to the facts.’

  Frank smiles and takes Bassett firmly by the ankles, wrenching the feet high and wide above their owner’s head. Bassett looks bewildered and tries to kick out with his legs but Frank pushes forward and throws him over the back of the chair.

  Bassett bellows and disappears.

  Frank is so surprised that he laughs as he leans across the desk in search of the toppled dictator. He feels himself transformed. His limbs seem to stretch to impossible lengths, his blood thickens to molten lava, his shadow billows against the walls.

  ‘I’m warning you!’ bawls Bassett, scrambling from the carpet. ‘Piss off or I’ll have you charged with assault!’ He hauls himself over the edge of the desk and finds himself staring into the barrel of a small, grey Colt automatic. And now it is Bassett’s turn to experience a transformation. He blinks. He gulps at the air like a bullfrog and whistles thinly through his nose as he plunges into the shadows again, searching for shelter beneath the desk.

  Frank lashes out at the desk and hurls it aside, casting its contents over the room. Bassett is crouched on the floor with his hands on his head and his head pressed between his knees.

  ‘Stand up!’ shouts Frank.

  Bassett yelps at the command and pulls himself tighter into a ball. His fingers are laced together against the crown of his head as if he’s afraid that his brains will explode. The fingers are purple with blood.

  Frank places a foot against the back of Bassett’s skull and sends him sprawling over the carpet.

  Bassett rolls against the wall and scrambles into a sitting position, pulling his knees against his chest. He finds a pencil lodged in the carpet and holds it out, waving it at Frank like the stump of a crucifix.

  ‘Stand up!’ shouts Frank. He towers victorious over his prey, legs braced, arms outstretched, clasping the gun in both hands the way he’s seen it done in the movies.

  ‘This won’t change anything!’ whines Bassett. He looks mad with fear. He stares around the floor at the debris from his desk. There are pens and pencils everywhere, scattered across the carpet like a game of Chinese sticks.

  ‘You’re wrong,’ says Frank.

  ‘That’s right,’ sings the gun.

  ‘Let’s talk,’ pleads Bassett. He climbs unsteadily to his feet, shaking his head and wringing his hands, like a man dragged drowning from a frozen lake. Oh, it’s cold! He can feel the frost in his heart. He can barely talk through his clacking teeth. ‘I didn’t mean any harm. It’s a mistake. You took me by surprise. It hasn’t been easy these last weeks. Believe me. It hasn’t been easy. Why don’t we go home and talk to Jessie? Put down that gun. I know that she wants to talk to you. It hasn’t been easy these last few weeks. Put down that gun. Let’s talk to Jessie.’

  ‘You think we’ll fall for that old trick?’ sneers the gun.

  ‘You’re staying here,’ says Frank.

  ‘She was worried sick. When you found us in the kitchen. It wasn’t as bad. It wasn’t as. The first time. Believe me, Frank. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt your feelings. Christ, we’re old friends. Jessie was drunk. I only stayed there for comfort. It was you, Frank. We were worried. Put down that gun. Let’s go home. Let’s talk to Jessie.’ As he continues to jabber he seems to be growing smaller, his head sinking into his shoulders, the flesh shrinking against his bone
s. He’s growing old before Frank’s eyes, withering into a wall-eyed goblin.

  ‘Walk over to that chair.’

  ‘Anything you want, Frank. Relax. It’s all right. Put down that gun. Let’s talk to Jessie.’ He offers his executioner a positively demented grin and shovels deeper into his clothes. His ears are bending against his collar and his fingers vanish into his sleeves as he shuffles across the room.

  ‘Stop!’

  Bassett stumbles blindly against the edge of a chrome and leather chair, bleating with fear and wrapping himself in his arms.

  ‘One mistake, Frank. First and last. Honest to God. It was nothing. Comfort like brother and sister. Believe me. I didn’t know. You disappeared. What could I think? Wanted to look after Jessie for you …’

  ‘Drop your pants,’ says Frank.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Drop your pants!’ roars the gun.

  Bassett begins to whinny as he fumbles and fools with his belt. His fingers seem to be turning to rubber. The belt breaks apart. His trousers fall in a shivering heap over his shining shoes.

  ‘And the rest!’

  He huddles over his hands, prising at a pair of black satin underpants that he drags down to cover his quaking knees. He trembles. He cowers. He looks pathetic. His penis, that treacherous charger, pugnacious beard-splitter, God’s gift to women, has shrunk to a winter acorn stuck in a spidery mulch of leaves.

  ‘Sit down.’

  ‘I don’t want to die, Frank. Please! God Almighty! Don’t do it, Frank. I don’t want to die!’ He buries his hands between his legs, squirming and grinding his heels in the carpet. His teeth look huge in the wizened face. His eyes roll in their sockets.

  Frank stands over the chair and pokes the barrel of the gun into Bassett’s protesting mouth, tapping it against his teeth to prove, if there be any lingering doubt, that it hasn’t been carved from prison soap.

  Bassett gurgles and screws up his eyes. His hair crackles with horror. His skin fades to the colour of dust.

  click

  Bassett screams so loudly that the force of it blasts the gun from his mouth. Frank jerks away and drops the weapon into his pocket. Bassett curls into a ball, rolls from the chair and hits the floor, his face buried in oatmeal carpet.

  Frank stands frozen and stares. He wants to turn and take flight. He’s scared of this gibbering animal that snuffles the ground at his feet. But when he tries to move, he seems to be floating, drifting in circles around the room. He has taken no more than two or three steps away from the killing chair when the door bursts open and Horace Larkson comes scampering into the room.

  ‘Oh, my God!’ he shouts, jerking his briefcase under his arm and throwing himself to the wall. ‘What happened? What have you done to him?’ He peers at the overturned desk, the wreckage scattered over the floor and Bassett, poor Bassett, plum crazy and half naked, with his buttocks still pumping the air.

  ‘What happened?’ wails Larkson, turning to Frank. He can’t believe his eyes. It’s the end of the world. He keeps tapping the hem-rimmed spectacles into position against his nose.

  ‘He fell off his perch,’ explains Frank. There’s no time to waste in small talk. He turns to escape but now finds himself trapped by a sentry standing guard at the door. She’s standing with her hands thrust deep in her overcoat pockets, grinning and staring into the room.

  It’s Valentine.

  ‘How did you get here?’ demands Frank, lurching forward, trying to keep her from the scene of the crime by stretching his arm like a chain to the door.

  ‘I bought a ticket downstairs,’ she says with a radiant smile, leaning against the chain, stretching on tiptoe to view the battlefield over his shoulder. Her eyes glitter with excitement. Her hair is still filled with the cold air of night.

  ‘You’re too late,’ says Frank, finding his arm around her waist. ‘You missed the show.’

  ‘What did you do to him, Frank?’ she says proudly, her face pressed against his neck. ‘He looks like you nailed his tongue to the floor and pushed the hammer up his arse!’

  ‘I didn’t touch him.’ He turns her around in his arms to guide her back to the stairs and the street.

  ‘Let’s go home, tough guy!’ chuckles the voice in his pocket.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  He stares through the rain at the terraces of narrow houses. They’ve driven north through Maida Vale and are lost in the sprawl of dark streets beyond the squalor of Kilburn.

  ‘We’re going to celebrate!’ grins Valentine, swinging the Bentley from the road and stopping at a pair of iron gates set in a high brick wall. Beyond the gates, caught in the headlamps, a series of empty paths lead through a maze of tombstones to a distant grove of cypress trees.

  ‘This is a graveyard!’

  ‘It’s the North West London and Metropolitan All Saints Garden of Rest,’ she corrects him. ‘Unlock the gates.’

  ‘Are you kidding?’

  ‘Here’s the key.’

  He steps from the car, clutching a key the size of a sword, and walks down the beams of the headlamps, towards the cemetery gates. Above him, perched on their lofty pillars, a pair of slumbering marble lions. Beneath his feet, caught in the filigree skirt of the gates, a crust of blown newspaper. Coke cans, hamburger wrappers, Lucozade bottles, fruit juice cartons, pizza boxes, fruit peelings and clots of Kleenex. The key clatters in the rusting lock. The gates drift apart and the limousine rolls forward, turns left and stops beside a small flint cottage propped among the buttresses of the wall.

  The cottage is a Gothic gatehouse with arched windows of dressed stone supporting turrets of fishscale slates. The windows are dark. A broken sarcophagus, filled with sour earth, spreads ivy against the flint walls.

  Frank waits patiently in the rain while Valentine gathers her cigarettes, hat, gloves and the day’s collection of shopping bags, before leading him to the cottage where a deep, lugubrious porch hides an oak door embellished with stained-glass panels and a peck-marked verdigris knocker in the shape of a human skull.

  ‘Isn’t it beautiful!’ she whispers, unlocking the door. ‘Webster found it for me. It’s the perfect hideaway.’

  ‘It’s cold!’ complains Frank, blinking as she snaps on the lights.

  ‘I’ll fix the heating and then we’ll have something to drink.’

  They are standing in a room no larger than a family mausoleum, crowded by a sofa and a rusted cast-iron stove. Cobwebs dangle from a plasterwork ceiling. A rug laid against the chill of the floor. There is a kitchen tucked under a staircase that leans against the opposite wall.

  Frank walks as far as the sofa and sits down among faded needle-point cushions. Valentine throws her coat on the floor, strides to the kitchen and starts banging cupboard doors. She’s wearing a black silk jacket and a pleated skirt that swings open and shut like a fan when she walks. Her shoes clink on the flagstones.

  ‘It’s vodka,’ she says, returning with a bottle and two crystal glasses balanced on a battered metal tray. ‘I forgot to order champagne.’

  She places the tray on the floor and curls into the sofa beside him, sitting side-saddle, tucking her skirt beneath her knees.

  Frank pours the drinks. It’s a darkly flavoured Polish vodka that gloops from the bottle like cooking oil. The heating comes to life with a muffled roar from one of the cupboards in the little kitchen. Beneath the windows, elderly radiators start complaining and pulling against their moorings.

  ‘It tastes like paint stripper!’ chokes Valentine, sipping suspiciously from her glass. She seems delighted by the discovery.

  Frank gulps at his drink and settles deeper into the cushions with his mouth and throat on fire. He keeps thinking of the bare-arsed Bassett, bleating and chewing the carpet. This small act of senseless violence has worked wonders for Frank’s self-esteem. He’s balanced the books, adjusted the columns of profit and loss. He is no longer obliged to play the victim, betrayed and alone, nursing his wounded pride in a corner. When someone off
ers you poison, drink from the cup and spit in their eye. It won’t bring Jessica home but at least he can live with himself again.

  ‘What’s that?’ Valentine flinches and frowns at him, stretching a long white hand to her throat.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Did you hear something?’ She twists around to scowl at the window but catches nothing more than her own reflection, deformed by the ripples in the ancient glass.

  Frank holds his breath and listens to the grumbling of the central heating, the fizzling rain, the scratching of mice.

  ‘You’re crazy!’ he grins, shaking his head.

  ‘Why?’ She sinks into the sofa again, runs her fingernails over her collar, flicks a strand of hair from her neck.

  ‘We’re sitting in a graveyard!’ The absurdity of the idea brings laughter bubbling into his throat. He shifts his weight in the cushions and feels the hard knub of the automatic pressing against his ribs.

  ‘It’s got character,’ protests Valentine. She glances quickly around the room, her eyes flitting from shadow to shadow, as if she expected skeletons to erupt through the flagstone floor.

  ‘Doesn’t it give you the spooks?’

  ‘Yeah!’ She grins and leans forward, pulling her shoulders into a hunch.

  ‘Does Conrad know you come here?’ he says softly. He pulls the Colt from his pocket and places it carefully in her lap.

  ‘It’s a secret,’ she says, pushing the gun beneath a cushion. ‘Every girl needs a secret.’

  ‘I’m supposed to look after you.’

  ‘So what? This must be the best-guarded patch of turf in London. They keep the gates locked to stop crazy people smashing the graves. Can you believe that? Mad people used to come here at night and try to dig out the corpses! Jesus! Are they sick or what!’

  ‘And the gatehouse?’

  ‘It was empty so I bought it.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘How what?’

  ‘How did you manage to buy your way into a locked graveyard?’

  ‘If you have enough money you can buy your way into the Kingdom of Heaven,’ she says scornfully and she believes it.