by Paul Murray
My chance had come that spring. She appeared by my side one day, more or less literally, amid a pageant of bluebells and forget-me-nots. I didn’t know how she had got there, exactly, but I didn’t ask questions. I fell instantly under her spell, just like everybody did.
I don’t remember exactly what we did together, or what we said to each other. It’s possible we didn’t do or say anything at all. It was the time itself that seemed enchanted: becoming a single evening that didn’t begin or end, through which we drifted along hand-in-hand as if plunged into a wonderful dream. And if she never quite yielded, if some part of her always seemed to be elsewhere, still I – spending my solitary hours frantically learning off Yeats, searching for the insight, the single line that would deliver her to me – still I assumed that this would only be a matter of time.
The problem was that the part of her that I felt was always somehow elsewhere was usually, more specifically, with Hoyland Maffey Indeed, Hoyland was frequently there with us, helping us to witness the spectacular spring. It seemed to me rather unorthodox for two people who were falling in love to have a third party present for so much of the falling. At last I put this to Patsy.
‘What do you mean?’ she said.
‘I mean, usually it’s just the two people on their own.’
‘But Hoyland’s our friend, Charles. Our bosom friend. It’s not fair leaving him out just because we’re so terribly, terribly in love.’
The way she said bosom would probably have been enough; but when she went on, completely unprompted, to deny that there had ever been anything between her and Hoyland, any doubts I had left were extinguished. At that moment I knew that she was telling Hoyland exactly the same story about me; I knew she knew I knew, and I knew that Hoyland knew it too.
The enchanted spring was quickly poisoned. Every moment was shadowed by mistrust and deception. Time and time again Patsy and I would be alone together in the library – a candle burned low on the ledge as we approached, seemingly inexorably, a moment of ecstatic union – when the doorbell would ring and Patsy would spring up from the billiard table saying, ‘Oh good, that’ll be Hoyland,’ as casually as if we’d just been playing an uninspired round of Scrabble; and there he would be, his mirthless grimace and darting eyes the mirror image of my own: ‘Hello, Hythers, just thought I’d stop by…’
‘Ha ha, always a pleasure, old man, get you a glass of something?’
Before long my love for Patsy had been totally superseded by my hatred for Hoyland. Every hour apart from her I spent in torment, imagining the two of them together. When I was with her I oscillated between desperate bids to impress her and equally desperate attempts to find out her true feelings. Every dainty sniff, every equivocal cough, every half-raised eyebrow, I would pore over for hours seeking to decode. Patsy, of course, had no true feelings; or if she did they had nothing to do with us. But even if I had known this it would have made little difference. What mattered now above all was that I thwart my former friend.
Finally, towards the end of April, things came to a head. Patsy was travelling to Rome for a couple of weeks to do some work for her thesis, something to do with Raphael and his courtesans. I had thrown together a send-off party, and had managed to pip Hoyland’s rival party by hiring Patsy’s favourite local jazz trio for the occasion. It was quite a soirée, or so I am told. The night was sweltering, presided over by a full silver moon; all kinds of carousing took place out on the lawn, including (allegedly) a striptease by Bel’s old schoolmate Bunty Chopin, right down to a couple of peacock feathers.
But Hoyland and I cared nothing for the celebrations. For the entire night we sat staring balefully at each other from armchairs in opposite corners of the recital room, rising only to top up our whiskeys. From time to time Patsy would breeze in from the garden where the trio had set up and drape herself over one of us, with the express intention of infuriating the undraped party in the opposing armchair, which it invariably did.
At four o’clock, both Hoyland and I arrived at the sideboard to find that only a single measure of whiskey remained in the decanter. We looked at each other, and the rest of the party – the conversations, the bragging trumpet, the hoots from the lawn – seemed to fall away. There was only the two of us: deadlocked.
‘Help yourself,’ I said.
‘No no, please,’ he returned.
‘My dear fellow, you’re the guest.’
‘It’s fine, really, I’ve had quite enough.’
‘Oh, you have, have you?’
‘Yes, as a matter of fact I have.’
‘Well, so have I, in that case.’
‘Well, “in that case” I’d be interested to hear what you intend to do about it.’
‘I – ah… that is…’ The ball was in my court but I had gone completely blank. The whiskey had turned my brain into a furnace of dry heat. All around me I could hear whispers like the crackle of kindling, and Patsy whistling ‘Sophisticated Lady’ as she drew up the hall – when I saw that as luck would have it someone had left her gloves on the piano. I seized one of them, and threw it down at Hoyland’s feet. A gasp went around the room. ‘I’m challenging you to a duel, that’s what,’ I said.
Hoyland looked surprised. ‘Really?’ he said.
‘Well…’ I said uncertainly. Just then Patsy came in and asked a girl on the periphery what was going on. ‘Charles wanted Hoyland to finish the whiskey, but Hoyland thought Charles ought to have it, so Charles challenged Hoyland to a duel,’ the girl said.
‘Oh,’ Patsy said. She sounded impressed.
‘Yes,’ I said to Hoyland.
‘Good,’ said Hoyland, who had had time to regain his composure and was superciliously buffing his cufflinks. ‘Swords or pistols?’
‘Pistols, obviously,’ I said, adding contemptuously, ‘Swords.’
The arrangements were quickly made. The antique pistols were brought down from the study, where Father had kept them loaded in his desk – a secret Bel and I weren’t supposed to know about. Solemnly, we chose our seconds: Boyd Snooks was mine, and Fluffy Elgin Hoyland’s. After trying vainly to talk us out of it, Pongo agreed to adjudicate. Other than these parties, everybody, including Patsy, was asked to remain inside. At five, we left the house by the back door.
We strode over the long grass to the gazebo, recently vacated by the jazz trio. Above us the sky was tinged with pink and a few early birds chirruped in the branches. Fluffy Elgin couldn’t stop giggling. Hoyland blinked at me from under the apple tree on which he’d hung his blazer. Pongo’s voice, when he spoke, was high and taut and cut into the quiet of the morning. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, summoning us together before the gazebo and requesting that we shake hands, before holding up the mahogany box: ‘Choose your weapons.’
The pistol was heavy and dull with a long barrel. Pongo ushered me into place, standing with my back to Hoyland’s. I realized how cold it was. Every detail of the garden blazed at me.
‘When I give the word, you must take ten paces. Then, at my signal, turn and face one another. When I throw my hat in the air, you may shoot. Understood? Right. Commence pacing. One…’
As I took my paces, stretching out my leg stiff at the knee, dew soaking the cuffs of my trousers, I did wonder what exactly I was doing. But it all made a kind of sense: in fact, a singular kind of sense.
‘Two… three…’
Every element of my life had, at this moment, cohered. If the worst came to the worst, and I died here, it would be in my own garden, surrounded by friends, for the honour of the woman I knew beyond a doubt to be my true and eternal love. As deaths went, this didn’t seem a bad one.
‘Five… Six…’
Bother, I realized I hadn’t said goodbye to Bel. She was away putting up lights for a show. It was probably just as well – she tended to be a wet blanket when it came to parties and I daresay would have frowned on duels too; furthermore she disapproved strongly of Patsy Olé, whom she referred to as the Dalkey Chameleon. I made a mental note to
mention her in my dying words.
‘Eight…’ Pongo called. ‘Nine…’
Fluffy Elgin’s giggles had turned into hiccups and she had to sit down.
‘Ten… Oh hell, hang on a second…’
There was a padding sound and then silence. Moments passed. I stood trembling with the muzzle cold against my cheek. I stared into a clump of peonies, emptily taking in the form of the leaf, the gleaming stem, the petals. Fluffy hiccuped dolefully.
‘I say, Boyd,’ I called out, after a little more time had passed.
‘Yes?’ Boyd replied from the log where he was trying to get Fluffy to hold her breath.
‘What’s going on?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Boyd said. ‘Pongo suddenly ran off somewhere.’
‘What?’ Hoyland’s voice wafted over from his position under the larches.
‘I think he had to get something from inside,’ Boyd said. ‘I shouldn’t think he’ll be long.’ He started humming to himself.
‘It’s deuced cold,’ I observed.
‘Can’t we sit down?’ Hoyland wanted to know. ‘Or turn around, at least?’
‘I don’t know,’ Boyd said. ‘You’d have to ask Pongo, he’s the adjudicator.’
We remained where we were. More birds joined in the tweeting. ‘The sun’s shining directly into my eyes,’ Hoyland complained. Somewhere a car raced down the road.
My teeth began to chatter.
‘Raaaaaah!’ Boyd exclaimed suddenly, making us all jump.
‘What on earth –’
‘I was trying to scare Fluffy,’ Boyd apologized.
‘Hiccup – hiccup – hiccup,’ Fluffy hiccuped miserably, twisting a peacock feather limply between her fingers.
‘This is ridiculous,’ I said and turned around, whereupon Hoyland immediately began jumping about shouting that I had forfeited the duel and that he was the winner by default.
‘Don’t be absurd,’ I said. ‘I’m going to find Pongo. This is no way to run a duel.’ I tossed my pistol under the apple trees and set off back towards the house, Hoyland scrambling after me.
Pongo wasn’t in the kitchen, nor was he in the dining room. Hoyland checked the library while I looked in the drawing room, but he wasn’t there either. He wasn’t one of the slumbering bodies in the recital room, nor was he among the mésalliances that had unfolded in the bedrooms.
‘It’s as if he’s disappeared,’ Hoyland said.
‘Very peculiar,’ I said.
‘I thought he’d been doing a very good job up until then,’ Hoyland said.
And then – just as we were about to abandon our search and call it a night – we found him. He was in the cloakroom, standing almost submerged in the layers of coats that hung on the back wall. His face was frozen in a remarkable expression, somewhere between astonishment and rapture. In his hand he held a triumphal-looking brandy. We asked him just what the blazes was going on; and he informed us, in a halting, wispy voice, that he had just been fellated by Patsy Olé.
Behind me, I heard Hoyland’s pistol clatter to the floor.
‘What?’ I whispered.
‘I only came in here to get my hat,’ Pongo reflected.
‘But – but –’ spluttered Hoyland, ‘but where is she now?’
‘Gone,’ Pongo said.
‘Gone?’
‘She flies to Italy in half an hour,’ he said dreamily. ‘Her taxi was waiting outside.’
‘But this is incredible,’ I said, ignoring the toxic contents performing a danse macabre in my stomach. ‘You mean to tell me that – that you were in here simply minding your own business, when she burst in, and…’ I broke off; it was too hideous to contemplate.
‘Yes,’ Pongo said. ‘That’s the long and the short of it. Then she took her coat and she left.’ He took a thoughtful sip from his brandy. ‘That’s some lady,’ he said.
A low moan emerged from Hoyland. The pair of us were hunched up like old men.
‘What about us?’ he managed to croak. ‘Didn’t she say anything about us?’
Pongo considered this. ‘She said,’ he recalled at last, ‘saluté –’ and he raised his glass to both of us.
9
Taking my chance meeting with Hoyland to be nothing less than a warning from the gods, I did not attempt any other agencies that day. The rain had become a deluge and by the time I got back to Bonetown I was in a foul mood. It didn’t help that from the bus stop I had to run a gauntlet of local youths, who appeared to have gone on some sort of rampage. The sky was lit up by explosions, and the streets were filled with urchins calling to each other as they hauled timber, car tyres and any other flammable business to the pyre that had materialized before the block of flats.
‘Hallowe’en,’ Droyd explained, when I pointed this out.
‘It’s weeks to Hallowe’en,’ I said sourly, taking off my scarf as, outside, a series of metallic creaks and groans was succeeded by cheers and an expensive-sounding crash. ‘They’re not going to keep this up all night, are they? I mean presumably some of them have parents, who might eventually begin to wonder –’
‘Ah yeah,’ Droyd said happily, looking down at the mayhem. ‘There’s always a bit of crack round here on Hallowe’en, am I right, Frankie?’
‘Ah yeah,’ Frank concurred lugubriously.
‘Look out, neighbourhood cats,’ Droyd said.
‘I don’t mind crack,’ I said. ‘I like crack as much as the next man. But it’s not doing a thing for my nerves, and I already have a splitting headache – I say, I don’t suppose those heroin dealers carry Anadin or paracetamol or anything like that, do they?’
‘I think they just have heroin, Charlie.’
‘Here, Frankie, remember that time the fire engine came out and we all threw rocks at them and I hit this one bollocks with a plank, remember that?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You assaulted the fire brigade?’ I said incredulously.
‘We were just tryin to have a laugh,’ Droyd’s face crossing swiftly silver then pink as a brace of rockets went up. ‘Is that too much to ask? If they’d just let us enjoy ourselves one fuckin day a year then no one’d have to get hurt, would they?’
‘A laugh,’ I repeated sardonically. ‘It looks like Bosnia out there.’ As I said it I felt a pang of homesickness for Mrs P and the cups of cocoa she made for one on rainy days like this…
‘I wonder if they’ll come out this year,’ Droyd said, rubbing his hands.
With a heavy sigh, Frank got up, went to the refrigerator, took out a six-pack of Hobson’s and left the room.
‘What’s eating him?’ I asked.
‘That bird was here,’ Droyd said disapprovingly.
‘What bird?’
‘That bird with no tits,’ he elaborated. ‘Your sister.’
‘She was? Well, damn it, why didn’t he – I say!’ I stormed out into the living room just in time to see Frank vanish into the bathroom and slide the lock shut. I went up and hammered indignantly on the door. ‘I say!’
‘Occupied,’ came the small voice from inside.
‘You didn’t tell me that Bel was here.’
‘Oh yeah,’ the voice said, with an air of cloudy recollection. ‘That’s right, she asked if you’d give her a ring.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me before? What was she doing here?’
‘Eh… I don’t know,’ the voice said meekly. ‘Just droppin off a few things I gave her a loan of for the play. Oh yeah, and she wanted to make sure I knew we were broken up.’
‘She… oh.’ I thought he’d seemed a little quiet.
‘I already had a fair idea. But it was nice of her all the same, just so I know where I stand, like.’
‘Ah,’ I said. A few moments elapsed; I stared somewhat helplessly at the flaky white paint of the door. ‘And you’re not… that is, you’re not…’
‘Me, Charlie? Ah, no. Right as rain.’ I heard the sound of a can being opened on the other side of the door, followed by a distinctive glu
gging. Reluctant to press him further, I stole away.
Bel came to the phone in a state of such high doh that I was sure something had happened, and when she said she was just excited because I had finally called I was downright alarmed. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ I said. ‘You haven’t had a blow to the head or anything?’
‘Of course not, I wanted to talk to you, that’s all. Oh Charles, something wonderful has happened, I’ve been dying to tell you –’
‘Oh?’ I had learned to be on my guard whenever Bel announced something wonderful.
‘Yes, it’s about Harry. You remember Harry, don’t you?’
‘Of course. How could I forget old Harry? Hasn’t fallen off a cliff, I hope, or been snatched away by an eagle –’
‘Don’t be silly, no, he’s –’ she took a deep breath, ‘he’s giving me the lead in his new play.’
‘Is he now? Well, well. Congratulations.’
‘I only found out last night, isn’t it amazing?’
‘Definitely,’ I said, although I wasn’t sure it merited actual paroxysms, such as were filtering down now from the other end of the line. ‘Though didn’t you have the lead in the last one too?’
‘That was different, that was an ensemble piece. This is – I mean he’s been working on it for ages, obviously, but last night we had this amazing conversation and afterwards he told me he’d just realized that he’d written it for me, like it was about me almost and he’d only just realized –’
‘Well, bravo,’ I said, trying to get in the spirit a little. ‘And what about old Mirela, is she going to be in this thing too?’
‘Oh, Mirela,’ Bel said impatiently. ‘Let’s not talk about Mirela.’
‘She is going to be in it, though?’ I persisted hopefully.
‘Yes, but that’s not the point, the point is I’m trying to tell you about this amazing conversation I had with Harry last night…’ A chain of squibs spat fractiously outside and somewhere a curtain of glass tinkled to the ground. I lowered myself to a sitting position. ‘Go on, then,’ I said reluctantly.