‘I’ll make bloody sure that it isn’t,’ I promised. ‘Anyway, you’re overrating me.’
‘No I’m not. You’re a Brit in a Hollywood movie; you’re tabloid meat from now on. Paparazzi after you and all that stuff.’
‘I was cast by my brother-in-law, for God’s sake!’
‘Doesn’t matter. You said yourself, Miles is commercial first and nothing second. You’re fairly well known as it is from the wrestling stuff. Now you’re going to be famous, pursued, selling exclusive rights to the first baby pics and all that stuff.’
‘Rubbish. It won’t be that bad.’
She gleamed at me, out from under her eyelashes, raised my hand to her lips and kissed it, lightly. ‘Oh no?’ she whispered. ‘Then why is there a bloke photographing us right now?’
Instinctively, I snatched my hand away and looked round. Outside, on the pavement, no more than a few yards away from us, stood a man. He was wearing dark trousers and a heavy cotton jacket, with a hood pulled up over his head. The way the streetlight was hitting the glass walls of the restaurant annexe meant that I couldn’t make out his face. Anyway, most of it was covered by what looked like a large digital camera, and it was pointed unmistakably at Susie and me.
The man waited long enough to take one more shot, catching, no doubt, the surprise and anger on my face, then turned and ran off. Still I had no clear view of him. I started out of my chair, but he had disappeared into the crowd, and I knew right away that it was useless. As I sat down again, I was aware of one or two people looking at me, but mostly the thing had gone unnoticed.
‘How long was he there?’ I asked her.
‘I don’t know. I was only aware of him when the people outside thinned out a bit. But it’s not as if we were necking or anything. Get used to it, though, love. That’s what it’s going to be like from now on. “Smile please, Oz. Gie’s your autograph, Oz.” You’ll have a fan club, you’ll have a website. Soon as this movie comes out.’
‘You reckon?’ I growled. ‘You think that was just some mark who recognised me from the telly?’
‘Who else could it have been?’
I looked at her. She wasn’t kidding; it hadn’t dawned on her. ‘I might never be able to prove it,’ I told her, ‘but it could have been Steve Miller.’
She gave a small gasp of surprise. ‘You think so? I’d have thought he’d never come near you again after what you did to him.’
‘Who else, then?’
‘Another of Prim’s cast-offs?’
‘I only know one of them, and another by sight. It wasn’t Fortunato, and it wasn’t that waiter bloke.’
‘Then chances are it was a punter. Anyway, you said it yourself. If it was Miller, you’ll never prove it. So forget it. Let’s go home.’
Susie settled what there was of the bill and we stepped out into the cold, crisp night; she wore the coat which she had bought in Barcelona, and I had on my heaviest jacket. I thought that there was a chance that the photographer might still be hanging around, so, rather than walk straight along the Passeig to the spot where the Mercedes was parked, I led her in the other direction, round the side of El Roser II. We stopped at the small headland which looks across the great bay towards Ampuriabrava and Rosas.
We stood there for a while. Susie admired the twinkling lights on the other side; I pretended to do the same, but all the time I was glancing round, to see if we had been followed. If it was Miller, and if he was still there, a broken nose would be only the start.
But there was no one lurking, either with a camera or without. Eventually we walked on; past L’Olla and El Pescadors, two cheek-by-jowl restaurants which are open all year round, then back to the car.
Although I knew that there was no longer any threat to Susie, I bolted the doors automatically once we were home. ‘Nightcap?’ I asked.
‘Not that sort,’ Susie replied.
I felt accustomed to her being there with me, even though it had been less than three days. I knew that it was short term, an encounter, an adventure; but in its course my life, or at least my outlook on it, had changed dramatically. Old delusions had been swept aside and new truths had taken their place. I knew myself now, for sure, and I had my wee Glasgow provocateuse to thank, or blame, for it. I felt as if I would be ready to live in the real world again. . in a couple of days.
‘Come on then,’ I said. She was wearing the dress that she had worn to Shirley’s the night before. She undid a single catch at the one covered shoulder; it slid gently to her feet and she was naked. I lifted her clean out of her shoes and carried her upstairs, once again.
Our first night, or morning, had been sudden and violent, our second had been filled with my anger. Our third was different, it was gentle, warm, and assured. Maybe it was because we knew that it had to end, but we were terrific together. We knew what each other wanted, what to do, where to go. And, into the bargain, we fitted together, piston and cylinder precision-matched like a Formula One engine.
If we had been trying to tire each other out, which we weren’t, then the outcome was a draw. We slipped into sleep together. I dreamed. I saw the two of us, on a sailing boat, knowing that we were due in harbour but without a wind to blow us home.
When I woke next morning, she was standing at the side of the bed, looking down at me, and she was dressed. ‘I’m going home, Oz,’ she said. ‘I’ve just phoned the airport, and they can get me on to a flight this afternoon.’
I wasn’t surprised; I had known that the third night was it. Still I asked her. ‘Wait another day?’
She shook her head. ‘No. If I did that, it could fuck up my game-plan big-time. I might start to want you in that way after all.’ She smiled. ‘Not love you, you understand. Susie doesn’t love. Just want you.’
‘Okay.’ I stepped out of bed, right side as always. I’m superstitious that way; I never get out of bed on the wrong side. ‘You put the coffee on. I’ll shower and dress, then I’ll drive you down.’
‘No, I’ll get a taxi.’
‘You’ve got one: no arguments.’
We ate a quick cereal breakfast then I loaded Susie’s case into the Voyager, and we took to the road. We spoke very little on the way down, not at all, in fact, just listening to CDs, until we were past the hilltop prison. ‘What would have happened over the last couple of days, d’you think,’ I asked, ‘if you hadn’t gone down those stairs?’
‘I don’t know,’ she admitted, with a smile. ‘I caught you off-guard, and it was wicked of me, but I needed you awful bad.
‘Probably we’d just have had a nice chaste weekend, but. . You weren’t exactly in the best frame of mind yourself, were you?’
I had to agree with her. In truth, I still wasn’t, but that was something to be confronted later, even though a wee, lurking, bit of me wanted to say ‘Fuck it’, and get on that plane with Susie.
‘I’m glad you came,’ I told her. ‘I don’t regret what happened, and I’m not going to feel guilty about it. You were right about many things, one of them being that I like women. I enjoyed you, Susie; I loved having you, one might say. I hope you enjoyed me too.’
She smiled again at my sudden declaration. ‘You were all right,’ she conceded. ‘Yes, okay, it was great; never better.
‘But that’s the least of what you did for me. Three days ago, when I walked up your drive, I was hurting, I was insecure and, for all that my business is doing well, inside I had the self-esteem of a gnat. Now I feel like me again, I know where I’m going and I have the self-belief to get there.
‘I was glad when I found that Prim was in the States. I was glad to have you to myself. I never meant to blurt out the truth about her and Fortunato, but I don’t regret that either. You don’t deserve to be allowed to live a lie; even if I do understand why she kept those things from you.’
‘Do you think it would have made any difference to how I felt about her,’ I asked her, ‘if she’d told me the whole story from the start? Every fucking detail?’
‘No.’
> But it does now, I thought to myself. It means that she’s not the person I thought I married.
‘I just wish she had, though,’ I said.
‘Maybe, but now you’re even. You’ve got a secret to keep from her.’
‘What if I don’t want to?’
‘Hey, I thought you’d stopped kidding yourself. You won’t because it’s in your interests not to. Sure you’ll say that it would only hurt her, but in terms of this great new career of yours, it could hurt you more. You’ll stay with her.’
‘But what if I didn’t? What about you and me?’
She gave me a look that bored into me even though I had my eyes on the road ahead. ‘I thought we’d agreed how you and I are going to be in the future. You’re going to be the strong man behind the Gantry throne.’
‘Yeah but what if. .?’
‘No what ifs,’ she exclaimed, suddenly, sharply.
‘We’re too alike, Oz. We’re hard, clever, ruthless, ambitious, rich and however many other adjectives we’ve got in common. The thought of you and I together full-time scares the hell out of me, as it should you. You get on with your life, I’ll get on with mine, and we’ll be there for each other as need be. That’s all I can handle. Susie doesn’t love; Susie can’t love.
‘Deal?’
‘Sure, it’s a deal. Oz doesn’t love either, not any more. Just as well, eh?’
It was Sunday, so the airport was relatively quiet. I parked and we walked together to the check-in, me wheeling that bloody great case behind me.
The departure gate was at the top of a big escalator. Having ditched the luggage, we rode up it arm in arm, Susie, clutching her passport and boarding card. At the top she turned towards me.
‘One last confession,’ she said.
I looked at her, intrigued; I’d thought that everything lay bare between us. ‘When I came out here, I wasn’t just concerned about the Castelgolf thing: I knew it was a con. The other investors and I finally twigged a few weeks ago that something was up. We put detectives on Chandler and Hickok, and we heard about the suicide, supposed, when it happened.
‘We didn’t call in the police at that stage for one reason only. One of the other investors is chief executive of a major public company, and he crapped himself about what the City might make of the news that he’d been the victim of a professional scam. When I heard that you and Prim were here, so close to the action, I volunteered to come out, and go to see the banker and the lawyer, Toldo, to find out whether the money was safe.
‘We didn’t have much hope of that, though. The day after Hickok’s death, the detective we put on Chandler reported back that he’d flown to the Costa del Sol, then out again to Rio, using another of his names.’
‘You know what that means, don’t you?’ I murmured. I had been keeping pace with her.
‘Yes indeed. Whoever it was that chucked me down your stairs. . and I agree that someone did. . there’s precious little chance that it was him.’
‘So who did?’
‘Exactly. And, just as intriguing. . why? It wasn’t Chandler, and if it was linked to my business in Glasgow, then it would just have happened there. I would understand if someone had seen me and had to have my fabulous body, but why would anyone want to break into your house, just to attack me?
‘Christ, I’d been in town for less than a day. Who would even know I was there?’
I didn’t have an answer for her, but I didn’t have time to dwell on it either, not then at any rate. Susie slipped her passport and boarding card into her shoulder-bag, put her arms around my neck, and pressed herself to me; we kissed, a mix of Glasgow and Fife style, a long and slow goodbye. If either of us had been wearing shades they’d have steamed up.
Finally, we came up for air. ‘I’ll write to you when I get back,’ she said. ‘Formally inviting you to join the board. You’ll let me know when you leave here, won’t you?’
‘Sure. I have the Glasgow premiere of Snatch coming up in a couple of weeks. I’ll be back for that, certainly: we’ll be back, I should say. You’re on the invitation list, by the way. It’ll probably be there when you get home.’
‘You make sure it is “we”,’ she cautioned me. ‘But don’t look for me there; not just yet.’
‘Fair enough,’ I acknowledged. ‘Hey. Just you remember, when you go looking for your titled consort, don’t go selling yourself short.’
She looked at me as if I was daft, her brown eyes flashing, the light glinting on her hair. ‘Selling doesn’t come into it, honey. I’ll be buying.’
I laughed at her frankness, but doubted if she’d have to get her chequebook out.
She kissed me again. ‘Hey,’ she whispered. ‘If Susie did love …’
‘Yeah,’ I answered. ‘Oz too …’
She turned and walked towards the gate, passport produced and offered for the cursory inspection, then she was through, beyond the metal detector and gone. She didn’t look back; to my complete surprise, I experienced a sudden surge of loneliness. It was nothing new to me, yet it signalled the truth of what she had said. My life had changed.
27
All the way back up the autopista I could think only of Susie, and what she’d told me at the airport. I had accepted Chandler ne Fowler as her attacker not just because it was convenient but because it was the only logical explanation.
But if it wasn’t him. . and it wasn’t. . then who on Earth, and, yes, just as important why on Earth?
If Susie didn’t have an enemy, that just left me. I ran through the field.
Fortunato? Never in a hundred; I was the answer to the guy’s prayers. When Prim turned up in L’Escala again he must have been the most relieved man in town to see that she had brought a new husband with her, after the way he had ditched her. The grief she could still have given him over that must have weighed heavily on him, especially with things patched up with Vero and her believing, as naively as I had, that he knew nothing about Prim’s aborted kid.
Steve Miller? He was an even less likely candidate. His remodelled hooter gave him something against me, but until then he hadn’t taken me seriously. I knew quite well that he’d seen me as no more a sap over whom he held a supposed edge, by virtue of having shafted Prim once upon a time. Anyway, no way was he capable of picking a lock expertly, nor could I see him manhandling Susie either.
Reynard Capulet? Even if he was still in the vicinity, which I doubted in a big way, what could he possibly have against me? I was the guy who had bought his house, and given him a big slab of money for it into the bargain. Okay, I had found the stiff in the pool, but someone had to, eventually, especially if they’d been meant to.
Someone from my recent, fairly exciting, past? Again, no, for one good reason; those who might have had an axe to grind against my skull are all dead. Okay there’s one who isn’t, but if he had been going to have a pop at me he’d have done it long ago, and somewhere else.
No one came to mind; no one at all. By the time I hit L’Escala I was back to thinking of Susie again, about our incredible three days together, and of the many truths she had told me and shown me, about herself, about Prim and about me.
No, Oz doesn’t love any more, not anyone alive, at least, but he can be attracted if the magnet is strong enough. I hadn’t thought of her in that way before. Back then, she was with Mike Dylan and he was my pal, and the old Oz didn’t do things like coveting a pal’s lady, far less covering her. Now, I thought of her, of our last kiss at the airport, of her retreating back, and I felt that pang again.
I swung the Voyager into the driveway, through the gate which I had left open, and drove it into the garage, beside the Merc. I took the shorter route to the back door, unlocked it, and stepped inside, my hand going up quickly to disable the alarm. But the active light was out. I frowned and walked along the short corridor, into the kitchen.
She was leaning over the dishwasher, with her back to me. I looked at her, and felt even more disorientated than I had on the previous Thursday
, when Susie’s voice had sounded behind me. I had had more than enough surprises for a while; and I sure wasn’t ready for this one. I had wanted time, time to think about her, and of what I was going to say to her.
My foot squeaked on the tiled floor and she jumped. She turned quickly, gasped with relief and smiled.
‘I know that “Welcome home” is in order,’ I said, ‘but I have to ask. How the hell did you get here?’
‘It’s a short story, really,’ she answered. She came to me and hugged me. ‘After we spoke on Friday, I went out for lunch with Miles and Dawn. We met an actor friend of his, Nicky Johnson. You’ve heard of him, I’m sure. Miles mentioned that I was there from Spain, and he said that he was about to fly to Madrid, in his private jet. He offered me a lift, said he would drop me off in Barcelona.
‘I thought it was too good a chance to miss, so here I am. I beat you home by five minutes; my taxi’s just gone.’ I had passed a Barcelona Airport taxi as I crossed the town boundary; its green light on top had caught my eye.
‘So where’s Susie?’ she asked.
‘She’s gone home. She felt awkward,’ I lied glibly, ‘with just the two of us being here, so she brought her flight forward. I’m just back from the airport myself.’
‘It’s a wonder I didn’t see you there, with our luck.’
Too right, I thought. Then something important came to me. ‘Put on the coffee,’ I said. ‘I won’t be a minute.’ I strode out of the kitchen and up the stairs. Quickly, I stripped the sheets and pillowcases from our bed and shoved them into the laundry basket in our bathroom; then I crossed the hall and did the same in the bedroom which Susie had used, if only briefly.
Prim was in the living room when I came downstairs; a mug of instant lay, waiting for me, on the coffee table. ‘So,’ I began, ‘tell me all about Elanore.’
‘She’s recovering well from the surgery,’ she replied. ‘They decided to hold off on the chemo for now: they’re going to give her time to regain a bit more strength. I had a long talk with the surgeon who operated; he’s as optimistic as he could be under the circumstances.
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