by Paul Murray
‘I just called to make sure we had it all clear for tonight.’
‘We’ve been over it a hundred times, of course it’s all clear.’
‘Right,’ he said. ‘So you’re positive you want to do it this way?’
‘Yes, I’m positive – look, MacGillycuddy, can’t you just accept that this is how I’m doing it, and stop trying to change my mind? One doesn’t just wander into these things, you know –’
‘Right,’ he said again.
‘I’ve given it considerable thought, and symbolically speaking this seems by far the best way of tying everything up.’
‘Grand. And that’s your final decision?’
‘Yes.’
There was a ruminative pause. ‘I mean, you’re sure you don’t want to drown, for instance?’
‘Drowning – what, I’m just going to fall into the sea, am I? What’s that going to make me look like?’
‘Well, put it this way, it’s late, you’ve had a few drinks – no inconsistencies there, if you’ll allow me – you announce you’re going for a quick stroll around the clifftops to clear your head. Cliffs now, for the death-faker they really are a godsend, you should be aware of that. Anyway you don’t come back, and the next morning we discover your pocket-watch on an overhanging branch –’
‘M,’ switching the phone testily from one hand to the other, ‘it’s my death, all right, and if you think I’m going to have everybody I know saying, Oh, poor Charles, pissed again, what a shame – it’s important to get the tone right, do you see?’ The man had simply no idea about tone. ‘It has to be poignant. This is a death that has to give people pause, to make them reflect, reconsider their values, realize that I was right and they were wrong. In terms of–’
‘Symbolism, yes, yes,’ MacGillycuddy interrupted, ‘certainly, yes, you do have to be concerned about that. But another thing you have to be sure about is whether it’s realistic, y’see the police –’
‘Realism?!’ I repeated incredulously. ‘When will you people let up with your damnable realism? Isn’t a man even allowed to die, without having to worry about whether it’s realistic or not?’
‘Follies don’t just explode, though.’
‘Of course they do, things are always exploding.’
‘Yes, but usually for a reason and not just because –’
‘There’ll be a reason,’ did he take me for a fool, some limp-wristed fop with no clue as to how the world worked and why things exploded?
The idea had come to me only a few days before, as the builders were explaining their latest strike – something to do with the government inveigling the country into NATO while the Dail was closed for summer holidays: ‘The whole thing’s a fuckin disgrace, Mr H, specially after what’s just been happening. Partnership for fuckin Peace me hole, we’ll be keeping missiles in our back gardens and learnin how to bomb hospitals I s’pose –’
‘Yes, I, um…’
‘Well, see you later. Oh, by the way, we haven’t finished hooking up the gas yet, so don’t start any fires in there or anything, ha ha! Bye.’
I explained all of this to MacGillycuddy. ‘So you see, it’s quite plausible: it’s late, I go out to the Folly to have a quick look at it before going to bed, I unwittingly start a fire of some kind, and then boom! I’m blown to smithereens. As far as anyone knows it’s a gas leak. It’s perfectly convincing. It probably happens every day, that sort of thing. I don’t see what you’re so worried about.’
‘All right,’ MacGillycuddy said heavily, ‘all right. I’ll make the preparations.’ And he named the time at which I, Charles, should be in the Folly should I wish to be exploded with it.
‘What about the other matter?’ I went on. ‘The Frank Trap, you know what you have to do?’
‘Yes, be outside the drawing room at –’
‘Not the drawing room, damn it, the dining room! Everything’s in the dining room, there’s nothing in the drawing room, what’s the point of filming that?’
‘Okay,’ he said slowly, ‘so I’m outside the dining room from eleven o’clock, and if he takes anything –’
‘Oh, he’s bound to take something, the man’s got all the restraint of a Thessalonica streetwalker –’
‘– and then I give the film to your sister, is that right?’
‘Yes, anonymously, she can’t know who made it. This way I’m simply presenting the facts, I’m not breaking the pact – we have this pact, you see.’
‘Ah right…’ Outside, dusk was settling; it wouldn’t be long now till Laura arrived. We went briskly over the remaining details, relatively minor matters – he’d procured some cash for me, and booked the plane ticket under an alias. ‘Why Chile, anyway?’ he asked.
‘The wine, obviously.’
‘Oh.’
‘It’s not without its teething problems, a certain youthful rashness, but it shows all the signs of coming into a resplendent adulthood.’
‘Oh,’ he said again, and then, after a pause: ‘Look, if I don’t see you, all the best, all right? Seriously.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, rather touched; and the receiver clicked dead in my ear.
Once again I felt that icy hand grip my stomach. There was no going back now; that click had sounded the end of my salad days. My exile from Amaurot had effectively begun. For an instant I panicked: where would I go? What would I do? Did they have croissants in Chile? But it was only an instant. MacGillycuddy was right, one had to be positive; and in a way it was exhilarating, having one’s life so full of machination and subterfuge. Perhaps this was how all those people felt, filing off to their offices and their jar factories every morning. To them, every day was a new adventure. And soon, of course, I would be taking my place among them; soon I would be far, far away from here, set free of all my cares, and nothing that happened would matter to me any more… Although in spite of my best efforts, a part of me was already nurturing a dream of the day in the misty future when I would return: creeping across the lawn in Fidel Castro beard and combat fatigues to peep in through the curtains of the drawing room, where Bel and Mother – older, silver-haired – paused at their needlework and wistfully recalled the noble son and brother for whom a place was still kept at the fireside; and then took up their cloths again, safe and secure in the grand illusion I had bequeathed them…
The clock struck for seven. I mixed myself a last, calmative gimlet and hastened to my room. I attached my collars and tied my tie; I clipped my cufflinks and buffed my shoes. From under the bed poked the small satchel of belongings I had allowed myself to bring away with me: a Latin American phrasebook; a parsimonious sum of money in dollars and pesos; an equally Spartan selection of socks and underwear; a photograph of the family; a plastic tiara that Bel had favoured during her days as a princess, years and years ago, in lieu of a picture of her; Father’s first edition of the collected poems of W. B. Yeats; an 8 × 10 of Gene from early in her career – when they’d called her the GET girl, for Gene Eliza Tierney, because she got what she wanted; or at least that was how it looked from the outside.
Laura’s yearbook photos were laid out chronologically on the coverlet from when I had been studying them earlier in the evening. As my eye fell over them now, it struck me that arranged like that they almost resembled a film reel: each year inscribed in a single frame, which if you projected them in sequence would show her coming – jerkily, fuzzily – to life before your very eyes; passing from wide-eyed childhood into full matinée-idol luminescence in a matter of seconds, appearing out of the ether like a djinn of the celluloid… And now, unbidden, my mind began to play the missing final reel: the scene where the doorbell rings and, giving my hair one last peremptory swipe, I run for the staircase, arriving at the midpoint just as Mrs P ushers in a slender young woman with long honey-coloured hair, who shrugs back her winter coat to reveal bare white shoulders and a dress black and sinuous as a flame; on the staircase, unseen, I observe her breathlessly – until suddenly our eyes meet, and at that moment w
e are transported into another world: a world where passions run simple and deep and come out in wisecracks and bold deeds, with room sometimes for an emotional monologue at the end; where everything is in its rightful place and there are no third parties waiting in the wings to change the dialogue, or close the scene for auction.
Now outside the first stars were emerging and beneath the orange-and-purple light everything cast strange teasing shadows. I turned my eyes to the tower, and had for an instant one of my visions, of capering satyrs and the angel peeping from the top; I blinked and they disappeared and all that was left was the decidedly unhallucinatory figure of Mrs P, returning from one of the aimless pilgrimages she had grown so fond of. Who would she cook for now, I thought, sipping at my gimlet; who would look out from this window and count stars…
And then the doorbell rang. Giving my hair one last peremptory swipe I made a dash for the stairs, coming to a stop midway and waiting there for Mrs P to hurry in from the garden and puff over to the door, clutching the handrail as it swung open and she ushered in an unmistakable form…
Nothing could have prepared me for this moment, I realized that straight away. It was overwhelming, even disquieting. She was beautiful, of course, intensely so; at the same time, seeing her moving around in three dimensions was rather a shock. To my overheated mind, the physicality of her seemed brazen, almost grotesque – less like a djinn than a statue come to life and colorized and standing in one’s hallway. Also, I couldn’t help noticing one or two departures from the dream-version of her arrival. The lustrous hair, for instance, was tied back into a functional ponytail. Then there appeared to be some confusion as to whether Mrs P was to be allowed to take her coat; and when in the end she did relinquish it, she revealed not a strapless evening gown but a mannish trouser-suit of anonymous high-street design. Watching from the stairs I wondered if I had made a terrible mistake: but then she lifted her eyes to me, and all the fear and dread that had enveloped me was erased.
How to describe them, those impossible planets, without lapsing into cliché? I will say only that in them I saw my own glittering afterlife, a blessed and fecund next world where milk and honey would be the order of the day; and a song awoke in my heart. ‘You’re Charles, I bet,’ she said.
‘Quite,’ I replied awkwardly, borne down the remaining stairs on a little cloud.
‘Somehow I knew you’d be tall,’ she said, cocking her head. ‘I just kind of knew.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, flushing, ‘although I wouldn’t say tall exactly, really I’m just upper-medium –’
‘I suppose I thought because Bel’s tall,’ she mused, ‘for a girl, you know.’
‘Yes, yes,’ I agreed without hearing – for it was clear already that words would be superfluous to us, that her true meaning was to be divined from the flutter of her hands, the glow of her skin.
‘So where’s these vases?’ she asked.
‘This way,’ I said, taking her by the hand and leading her eagerly into the reconfigured dining room. ‘There’s a few other bits and pieces…’
‘Wow…’ Her cheeks flushed as she took in the shimmering array. ‘Is it just the vases you wanted insured, or…?’ A delicious avarice caught in her voice.
‘Oh, everything, I suppose,’ I said carelessly.
‘Wow,’ she said again.
‘I thought you’d like it,’ I began to babble. ‘Most of the time it’s just sitting in boxes, I’ve been waiting so long for someone to come and make sense of it all…’
‘Index it,’ she murmured.
‘Index…’ I echoed, sighingly.
‘Appraise it,’ her lovely eyes drifted and lingered.
‘Yes, yes…’
‘I wonder what coverage’d be most suitable… it must be worth so much.’
‘Oh, well, I’ll leave that up to you. To me they’re just trinkets, really, playthings… there’s more to life than money, after all.’
‘You shouldn’t ever say that, Charles,’ she said sternly, turning to look at me. ‘No one likes to think about fire and theft, but, like, they happen every day. It’s your responsibility to take care of your valuables, because if you don’t, who else is going to?’
‘Quite so,’ I said, gazing at her tenderly, ‘you’re absolutely right.’ In certain modes, from certain angles, her pulchritude was positively breathtaking; looking at her I found I could almost forget about what lay ahead for me. My initial disorientation had quite passed now: I was glad I had her here, an accomplice for this last hallucinatory night, helping me turn these heavy moments, these woebegone lost riches, into a private carousel of light and gaiety and pleasure. ‘But that’s all ahead of us. Why don’t we eat first, get acquainted.’ I went to the door and dimmed the lights. ‘It’s important to have an understanding, a rapport, in these matters… Please, have a seat. Can I offer you a drink?’
‘I don’t know if I should…’ Her eyes flashed wickedly. ‘Okay so, do you have any Le Piat d’Or?’
‘I’m almost certain we’ve just run out – but perhaps you’ll join me in a gimlet? Vodka and lime juice, really quite delicious…’ and I rang the bell for the entrées.
Mrs P had outdone herself: the food was magnificent, heady, rhapsodic. Each course was a seduction, each flavour a Salome’s veil floating down to the palate. However, other than getting an oyster stuck in her throat, Laura appeared unmoved. She ate perfunctorily, without seeming to notice what was on the plate; throughout starters and the main course she betrayed nothing of the graceful, photographic Laura I’d fallen in love with. Conversationally, too, she was proving an elusive quarry. Far from our two souls melting into one, I found talking to her rather like climbing a mountain; a mountain of glass.
For one thing, no matter how much I dimmed the lights, some knick-knack or other kept catching her eye and she would get up to look at it. ‘Wow,’ she’d say, tossing one of those silly Fabergé eggs from palm to palm, ‘this must be really old.’
‘It is,’ I’d say. ‘Anyway, there’s Pongo McGurks and I, policeman’s helmet in my –’
‘It’s so old.’
‘ – hotly pursued by the local cricket team –’
‘And this, God, this must be really, really old…’
It’s difficult to steer a conversation when one’s interlocutor is constantly bouncing up and leaving one’s field of vision; though having said that, even when she sat still nothing I said to her appeared to have any effect. Blue-chip anecdotes, the ones I reserved for occasions such as this, met with the same implacable indifference as the food: ‘… and then the morning she passed away – I remember it quite clearly, though I couldn’t have been more than five or so – Father came out with a terrible, ashen face. He didn’t speak; he just handed me a little shaving-mirror. Granny’d had the nurse bring it to her especially so she could give it to me, even though the doctors said she didn’t recognize anyone any more –’
‘Why did your Granny have a shaving-mirror?’
‘Well it had been Grandfather’s, I think I told you that, if you’ll cast your mind back to a minute or so ago –’
‘Oh right,’ she’d respond, chewing. ‘So, did she get better?’
‘No, as I said, that was when she died, you see…’
‘Oh right.’
And then the terrible silence until I could summon up another, anecdote after anecdote like swine driven over a cliff, tumbling down and down into the dizzying blue void!
‘Well, let’s talk about you,’ I said finally, as people are less easily diverted when talking about themselves.
This proved to be disastrous.
‘Well, I went to school in Holy Child,’ Laura began, ‘which you probably know all about from Bel. It was brilliant, I had such a laugh. I wasn’t into arty stuff like she was – I would have loved to’ve been able to, like, just sit around in cafés all day smoking and being arty – but I suppose I’m just naturally practical, like my future has always been really important to me. Like you have to
think about getting a good job and stuff.’
‘You do,’ I said. ‘You really do.’
‘Anyway, after my exams I got into Business and Technology in the Smorfett Institute –’
‘Isn’t that where they did all those experiments on monkeys?’ I interjected.
‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s actually one of the best IT solutions centres in Europe.’
I didn’t fully understand what this meant, other than it had to do with computers and entailed lots of ‘opportunities’; but whatever it was, upon graduating she decided to look for something more ‘people-oriented’. ‘I like people,’ she said.
‘Who doesn’t?’ I said.
As such, she continued, she was naturally drawn to the high-octane world of insurance.
‘Excuse me a minute,’ I said. Suddenly feeling rather dry, I went into the kitchen and took a fresh bottle of Fetzer from the cooler. I suppose I must have remained standing there for longer than I realized, because Mrs P asked me if I was all right.
‘Master Charles, the dinner is okay? The food it is nice?’
‘What? Oh – yes, yes, Mrs P. Bravo. A tour de force.’
‘You look like you are tired.’
‘Me? Not at all, raring to go.’
‘But you are rubbing the eyes…’
‘Oh, just taking a breather, you know… I say, Mrs P, have you ever heard of anyone choking on an oyster?’
‘On an oyster?’ She gave this some thought. ‘No, Master Charles, an oyster I don’t think is possible.’
‘That’s what I thought. Oh well, never mind. Once more unto the breach, I suppose…’ I took the wine and returned to the dining room. Laura smiled as I seated myself and then began telling me about the relationship she had been in during this exciting period in her life. It was quite serious; in fact they went out for almost five years.
‘Five years?’
His name was Declan. He was manager of a service station on the Bray Road. ‘He was doing really well,’ she said, ‘the money’s really good in forecourt retail and he was in contention for another service station, in Deansgrange. But we just wanted different things, you know?’ They had parted ways six months ago when Declan decided to give up his job and go to Australia for a year: ‘It’s great out there!’ Laura said. ‘Imagine, Christmas on the beach! Wouldn’t that be mad!’