by John Boyne
A young girl passed him by and the scent of her perfume made him lift his head a little and he watched her as she spoke to the barman. She was a few years younger than him, perhaps in her late teens or early twenties, and might have been attractive if she hadn’t been wearing so much make-up and a tacky dress. She felt his eyes on her and turned her head slowly to look at him. He held her gaze there for a moment before turning away, not knowing why he was watching her in the first place.
Montignac checked his watch; it was nearly midnight and he was feeling desperately tired now. It had been a strenuous evening, from the dinner with Stella and Raymond through to his virtual kidnapping by Delfy’s henchman and then ultimately the interview with the club owner himself. He stifled a yawn and wondered whether he should just finish his drink and get a taxi on the street back to his flat in Bedford Place but his legs felt heavy beneath him and he couldn’t face standing up just yet. He remembered that he had arranged to have lunch with Stella the following day—alone, he had insisted—and considered for a moment the idea of discussing his financial problems with her then, before dismissing it out of hand. He couldn’t ask her for the money, his pride was too strong for that. Besides, he knew full well that the provisions of his uncle’s will would make it difficult for her to cover the debt. She would be required to sell something but most of the landownings were held in trust for her own heirs. Peter Montignac had made it clear that he was reluctant to break the family tradition by passing down his wealth to his daughter but had ensured that, since he was faced with no other choice, she would have access only to the bank accounts, the interest and the rents. Her children would have the freedom to do whatever they wanted when their time came but traditions would be observed for this generation. He obviously didn’t trust his daughter, his only surviving child. But he trusted her more than he had trusted his nephew.
‘You looking for company?’ asked the girl from the bar, moving closer to him now and lowering herself on to a stool. She leaned forwards, her head resting on one hand, as she tried to get a better look at his face. He recognized her immediately as one of the girls Delfy employed to keep the wealthy young men coming back for more.
‘Not really,’ said Montignac.
‘Here, I know you, don’t I?’ she asked, remembering the startling white hair that distinguished Montignac from most of the other regulars.
‘I’ve been here before, yes.’
‘Aren’t you going to buy me a drink then?’
He turned and looked at her, blinking his eyes for a moment at her presumption, and shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, I’m not. But I’ll have another whisky if you’re offering.’
‘I’m not offering nothing,’ she said, offended. ‘What kind of gentleman refuses to buy a lady a drink anyway?’
‘I didn’t,’ he said.
‘You just did.’
‘You’re not a lady.’
The girl narrowed her eyes and stared at him angrily. She felt the urge to launch a stream of abuse at him but perhaps her evening had been just as strenuous as his own and instead she simply shook her head and stood up again, nonplussed by his attitude.
‘Suit yourself,’ she said in a tired voice. ‘Stay on your own then.’
He nodded and she drifted away. There were moments, of course, when he wanted a woman and nights when he found one, just to satisfy his needs. The idea of finding someone more permanent never crossed his mind; the idea of letting someone in again, allowing himself to be as badly scarred as he was the last time, was something he couldn’t countenance. He lifted his empty glass and nodded at the barman who poured him another drink and he paid for it now in loose change without embarrassment.
Out of the corner of his eye he could see the figure of the large man who had escorted him here earlier in the evening stepping into Delfy’s office. He was precisely the kind of character who was always employed in clubs like this and who usually ended up working for men like Nicholas Delfy. Quiet, polite, softly spoken, all traits in marked contrast to his enormous size and vast body weight. The type that would have a pleasant conversation with you about the football results or the price of cigarettes while he brought you to a deserted wasteland somewhere outside of London and released your arms from their sockets. The sort that would slice off your ear and then pass you a handful of handkerchiefs to stem the bleeding. It meant nothing to him; it was only a job. A way to pay off his own debts, buy his own women. He could only imagine the man’s disappointment when his employer told him that he had given the young white-haired man a second chance. Four weeks to raise ten thousand, Delfy would have told him by now. Otherwise, he’s all yours.
From the casino to his right he could hear the sounds of people playing, voices raised in excitement around the tables, the sharp calls of the croupiers as they extended their rakes to collect the scattered chips on the baize, their eyes moving from player to player as each lost more and more money and tried to look ever more unflappable to their friends, as if there was plenty more where that came from. He knew that no one ever looked as pleased with himself as the man who was losing his shirt. Despite the fact that his insides would be churning in tension and self-loathing for coming back here again and again and again when he knew there was never a chance of victory. Everyone would save so much time, he thought, if they simply deposited all their money in a bag when they came in to the club and then just turned around and went home again. Cut out the middle man of the tables entirely. There was no such thing as a winner, he knew that only too well. Even the players who had lucky nights returned to pour it all back to the croupiers only twenty-four hours later, and then some. People like Nicholas Delfy were in business because the house always won.
He was faced with only a couple of real choices, he realized. Fight back or buckle under.
The tension and concern for his future health lifted for a moment and he had a moment of clarity. He wondered why he allowed himself to feel so depressed. If he continued to act like this there was no way that he would ever raise the money and save his own skin. He was Owen Montignac, after all. He had faced worse obstacles than this one. He thought of his past, of his parents, of Andrew, of Stella, of his uncle, Peter; he considered what they had done to him, what they had tried to do, and what he had done in return. Then he pictured himself, sitting alone on a bar stool, crying into his whisky. This was not the man he was born to be. He was better than this.
He stood up, drained the remains of his glass, and was about to walk away when a hand clasped him on the arm. He spun around, suddenly afraid that Delfy had changed his mind about the grace period and was demanding payment after all, but it wasn’t him or any of his henchmen standing there. It was his oldest friend, Alexander Keys, who stood before him with a wide smile on his face.
‘Owen,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d sworn off this place for life.’
9
LEAVING THE UNICORN BALLROOMS five weeks earlier, only a few days before the death of his uncle, Owen Montignac had sworn to Alexander Keys that he was finished with gambling for good. He’d wasted enough of his time in places like this, he’d told him, laughing it off and pretending that he’d cost himself another thirty or forty pounds over the course of the evening when in truth his accumulated debt stood at about twelve hundred times that figure. Not that he could have let Alexander know the truth; the trick to remaining solvent when almost bankrupt was never to allow others to recognize your financial difficulties. In fact, if ever there was a time to appear generous towards one’s friends, it was at the moment when one could least afford it. That night, as they had left the club, Montignac had insisted on bringing his friend to an expensive restaurant and paying for dinner for them both.
‘Alexander,’ said Montignac as he turned around, surprised and not entirely happy to see him standing there. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Well I’m here with a few friends,’ said Alexander. ‘Jasper Conway for one. You know him, don’t you?’
‘A little,
’ said Montignac, who didn’t care for him and could never understand why his friend associated with such a leech.
‘And Gareth Bentley. It’s Gareth’s birthday so we’ve been out celebrating. Have you met him?’
Montignac shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, I don’t believe I know him.’
‘Well you must come over and say hello then,’ said Alexander. ‘What are you drinking anyway?’
‘Actually, I was just about to leave,’ said Montignac, glancing hopefully in the direction of the doors. ‘It’s getting late.’
‘Oh nonsense,’ he replied, dragging his friend back to the bar. ‘We’re having champagne. You’ll join us in a glass, won’t you?’
Montignac shrugged; there seemed little chance of getting out of it. ‘Well all right,’ he said. ‘But I can’t stay long. I’m tired and I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow.’
‘No one ever should refuse champagne,’ said Alexander cheerfully. ‘It’s terribly rude.’
‘If I wake up with a hangover, it’s you I’ll blame,’ replied Montignac with a smile.
‘Anyway, you still haven’t answered my question,’ he continued. ‘The last time you and I left here you promised me that you wouldn’t be caught dead in one of these places again.’
‘That’s almost exactly how I was caught tonight,’ replied Montignac ruefully.
‘Hmm? What’s that?’
‘Oh nothing,’ said Montignac. ‘Let’s just say I had a moment of weakness.’
‘At the bar or at the casino?’
‘Only at the bar, I’m pleased to report.’
‘Well that’s something, I suppose,’ said Alexander. ‘It’s not the worse vice of the two.’
‘No.’
The barman came over and Alexander ordered another magnum of champagne and four glasses.
‘So,’ he said finally. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t called in to the gallery to see you recently. It’s been on my to-do list but I’ve just been very busy at work.’
‘Yes, reading all those novels must tire one out so,’ said Montignac. ‘All those hours spent trying to decipher metaphor from actual plot.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Owen, I’m a book reviewer,’ said Alexander sternly. ‘Reading the blasted things would prejudice one enormously.’
‘I suppose it would. Actually I read something recently that you recommended in The Times a few weeks back. You said it was a masterpiece.’
‘Really? And was it any good?’
‘Perfectly dreadful.’
‘Oh I am sorry,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Well never mind. I’ll be recommending something equally appalling next week no doubt.’
‘No doubt,’ said Montignac.
‘The problem is that one reads these books and they don’t make any sense at all but one never knows when Kenneth Tynan or Bunny Wilson will suddenly turn around and proclaim it to be a masterpiece. The last thing one wants is to be on the wrong side of a literary phenomenon.’
‘What a simple life you lead, Alexander,’ said Montignac.
‘Well you must see it in the gallery too, surely? All that dreadful rubbish you sell.’
‘That dreadful rubbish, as you put it, goes for enormous amounts of money.’
‘To people who wouldn’t understand a piece of art if it came up to them in the street and deconstructed itself in broad daylight. When was the last time you had anything of any actual merit in your gallery?’
‘Only last week we sold a small sculpture by Tony Shefley for eight thousand pounds.’
‘The last piece of any artistic value,’ asked Alexander.
‘Oh God, don’t be ridiculous,’ said Montignac with a laugh. ‘I can’t remember the last time we even had one in stock, let alone sold one. You know a fellow came in a few days ago—just off the street—with one of his own paintings and asked to have it valued.’
‘And how was it?’
‘It was magnificent. A landscape. An unusual use of colour, almost a contemporary sfumato. Brushstrokes that would have made Van Gogh proud. Really, something quite extraordinary.’
‘And you sent the fellow away with a flea in his ear, I presume.’
‘Well naturally. There’s no chance at all that we could sell something so obviously good. Our customers would look down their noses at it. No, I sent him next door to the Clarion. Under any other circumstances I might have made an offer on the thing myself.’
Alexander stopped smiling and he leaned forward slightly, making sure that no one could overhear him when there weren’t any more mots justes to be thrown around. ‘How are you doing now anyway?’ he asked. ‘Have you come to terms with what happened?’
‘With what exactly?’ asked Montignac innocently.
‘Well you know. Your uncle’s death. And the … unpleasantness afterwards.’
Montignac nodded. ‘If you’re referring to the fact that I was entirely cut out of his will, then yes, let’s just say I’ve managed to get the fact of it straight in my head. I’m learning to accept that for the time being I am a young man without any prospects. In fact, I rather think my uncle meant to teach me a lesson. To show me that, despite all the effort I’ve put in over the years, he has left me exactly as he found me.’
‘How do you mean?’ asked Alexander.
‘As the poor relation,’ said Montignac, the bitterness coming through clearly in his voice. ‘It turns out he wasn’t such a traditionalist after all and that blood, real blood, turned out to be thicker than water.’
‘And how’s Stella?’ asked Alexander after a pause, unsure how to respond to the tone of bitterness.
‘Basking in glory.’
‘I see.’
‘Oh come on, Alexander, don’t mind me,’ said Montignac, slapping his friend on the shoulder in an attempt at jollity. ‘It’s hardly the end of the world. What is it they say? I still have my health.’ For the moment anyway, he thought.
The champagne and glasses came and they took them over to the table where Jasper and Gareth were engaged in an animated debate about whose responsibility the cab ride home should be. Both felt it should be the other’s.
‘Montignac,’ said Jasper in delight as he sat down at the booth. ‘Where the devil did you spring from?’
‘I found him alone and palely loitering at the bar,’ explained Alexander. ‘And told him he should come and drown his sorrows with us. This is Gareth Bentley, an old friend of mine,’ he said to Montignac, introducing the boy on the other side of the table who was rooting through his wallet to see how much money he had left. ‘And Gareth, this is my oldest friend in the world, Owen Montignac. We went to school together.’
Gareth looked up and opened his mouth to say hello but words of greeting caught in the back of his throat, as if his breath had been stolen from him for a moment. Forcing his eyes up a little higher he was so struck by the young man’s startling white hair that he felt an unexpected urge to reach across and stroke it.
‘I believe it’s your birthday,’ said Montignac.
‘Yes. Yes, it is,’ he replied quietly.
Montignac nodded and no one spoke while they waited for him to offer his congratulations but after a moment it became clear that none were to be forthcoming and an uneasy silence descended.
‘We’ve been leading Gareth down the road to rack and ruin at the roulette table,’ said Jasper, interrupting it. ‘He cost me thirty pounds, would you believe.’
‘It was my thirty pounds,’ protested Gareth. ‘My mother gave it to me this morning.’
‘Oh really, Gareth,’ said Jasper with the air of a frustrated mentor. ‘If you can’t afford to lose it, then you really shouldn’t bring it with you.’
‘Three turns at the wheel,’ said Gareth in a glum tone, appealing to Montignac’s sense of right and wrong. ‘That was all it took. Three turns at the wheel and every penny was gone. Isn’t that awful?’
‘If I was you I wouldn’t allow myself to get led astray,’ said Montignac who would have loved to have
been able to return to the days when the loss of thirty pounds would have been a matter worth shedding tears over.
‘Don’t worry, I’ve learned my lesson.’
‘Oh come on,’ said Jasper irritably. ‘You can’t give up just because of one bad night. That’s hardly the action of a good loser, is it?’
‘Well I’d rather not be any kind of loser, thank you very much,’ said Gareth, quite sensibly. ‘I’ll stick to my other vices from now on.’
‘And what vices would they be?’ asked Montignac, pricking up his ears.
‘Sloth and covetousness,’ replied Gareth with a smile.
Montignac laughed. ‘The sloth I can understand,’ he said. ‘But what exactly is it that you covet?’
‘The ability of the idle rich not to have to get a job,’ he replied quickly.
‘You don’t want to say that,’ said Jasper. ‘Old Montignac here is one of the idle rich. He’s worth millions.’
‘Sadly not,’ said Montignac.
‘Really, Jasper,’ interrupted Alexander, looking suitably embarrassed. ‘I hardly think that’s a suitable subject for conversation.’
‘Quite right, quite right,’ said Jasper apologetically, his face starting to redden now as all the alcohol he had consumed over the course of the evening began to take effect. ‘I never did get around to offering my condolences by the way, Owen. Over your uncle, I mean. I’d intended to write but it went clean out of my head. Anyway, I was sorry to hear the news.’
‘Thank you,’ said Montignac, staring at the table.
‘Owen’s uncle died recently,’ Jasper explained to Gareth, beginning to slur his words so badly now that Alexander considered relieving him of his champagne glass. ‘One of the wealthiest landowners in England he was too. Left the whole stack to our friend here.’
‘Jasper, that’s enough,’ said Alexander sharply.