by William Boyd
“I had no choice,” she said. “If I wasn’t here in France I’d be in jail.”
“Talbot Kydd said he could fix everything for you. You’d be OK.”
“He’s just a producer. He wants to finish his movie. He doesn’t care about me or my life. Or my safety.”
“We finish on Monday, you know.”
“What? How, for fuck’s sake? How can you finish without me being there?” She had taken an Equanil while she waited for Troy and was finding it hard to concentrate.
“They’ve thought of a way of finishing it—without you.” Troy carefully explained what the new ending involved.
“So, they kill me off,” she said, quietly. “I die.” She thought of her dream and her daily waking thought. Maybe that was what she had been prefiguring—her movie death. Somehow it didn’t make it seem any better.
“I die too,” Troy said. “We die together.”
“Well, that’s something.” She reached out and stroked the back of his hand. “Good.”
“And then we go up our ladder to the moon.”
“And what does that signify?”
“Anything you want, I suppose. Rodrigo has about ten explanations.”
“I suppose he’s a nice enough guy but he’s full of bullshit. Pretentious bullshit.”
“I think he’s shagging the new writer,” Troy said.
“Wouldn’t surprise me.” She paused. “Where’s the money?”
Troy crossed the room to his jacket that was hanging on the back of a chair and fished in the pocket. He handed her a thick envelope. She looked inside: it was full of notes, British money. She had called him at the hotel, told him where she was living and had asked him to bring her as much money as possible.
“How much is there?” she asked, taking the wad out.
“About nine hundred pounds. It’s everything I could get. I can get you more but just give me some notice.”
In her head Anny converted the pounds into dollars. It was more than enough. It would last her until she could find a way of accessing her own money in the States. She stuffed it back in the envelope and set it down on the table beside her.
“I’ll pay you back,” she said.
“I don’t want you to pay me back. It’s a gift.”
“I’ll pay you back.”
“OK. If you want to.” He reached out and pulled her off her chair and into his lap. He kissed her throat and she gripped the hair on the back of his head.
“I’ve written a song about you,” Troy said. “Would you like to hear it?”
“Sure.”
“It’s called ‘The Man You Wanted.’ ”
He cleared his throat and sang, in his husky tenor.
I knew I’d never be the man you wanted
I knew I’d never be your Mister Right
But all the same my life is haunted —
My heart’s marshmallow, yours is anthracite.
“Stop,” she said. “I can’t listen to any more.”
“There are three more verses.”
“I can’t listen to more. You’ll make me cry.”
“Don’t worry. But I’m hoping they’ll use it in the film. At the end, over the credits, they say.”
“What’s anthracite?”
“It’s a kind of coal. The best type of hard coal. It burns with a smokeless, blue flame. I found the word in a rhyming dictionary.”
“I don’t have a heart of coal.”
“Then why don’t you come back with me?”
“I have to stay here. I explained.”
“With Jacques.”
“Yes. He protects me.”
“I’ll protect you.”
“I can’t, Troy.” She kissed him again and he hugged her.
“Come back,” he whispered. “Come back with me.”
“I will,” she said. “One day.”
5
Gary Hicksmith was fifteen minutes late. Talbot was, in a way, rather relieved—it gave him some more time to compose himself. He felt strangely nervous, as if he were going to an important interview, or was about to meet some grand actor who might deign to appear in the film he was producing. How absurd, he remonstrated with himself, kindly get some perspective. The young foreman of a scaffolding firm was coming to apologise and reimburse him for a bounced cheque. He told himself to calm down.
The doorbell rang—at the main door—and Talbot stepped into the hall to answer it. Gary was in black jeans and a charcoal-grey windcheater with a red t-shirt underneath. He looked crisp, clean and well-shaven, something of a contrast to the man Talbot had known in his work clothes.
Talbot led him back to the flat where Gary proffered a £10 note as reimbursement, no change required, profound apologies from Axelrod Scaffolding Ltd. for the embarrassment.
“It couldn’t matter less,” Talbot said. “Anyway, everything’s sorted out now. All’s well that ends well.”
“True,” Gary said, looking around the flat with frank curiosity. “You’re sorted, Mr. Eastman, but I have to tell you I’m still up to my neck in other problems.”
Talbot sensed he wanted to unburden himself. He looked at Gary with a sympathetic smile. Gary, tall and slim, scrubbed up, his dark-blond hair curling over his ears, hands in pockets, troubled.
“Listen,” Talbot said, “can I buy you a drink? There’s a nice pub down the road—the Swan. A problem shared is a problem halved, and all that.”
They walked down the road towards the Swan, Talbot detouring so that they could pass the Alvis—he’d left his chequebook in the glove compartment. He unlocked the car and fetched it out. Gary was walking around the Alvis, wonderingly.
“This is yours, I take it,” he said.
“It’s an indulgence. But I do enjoy it.”
“I’ll say. God. Bet you that costs a pretty packet.”
“It did, rather.” Talbot laughed. “They make very few of this model.”
“An Alvis. Wow. Must have cost thousands.”
“Shall we wander on?”
They walked on to the pub, Gary taking one last admiring look at the car before they turned the corner.
The Swan was an old pub, eighteenth century, so it claimed, rather over-revelling in its purported antiquity, Talbot thought: low ceilings, uneven, dark-stained, wide-planked floors, wooden booths and a quaint little door between the snug and the saloon that you had to duck through. Behind the bar dozens of bashed pewter tankards hung. Everything was polished, glass winked brightly. The pub’s venerable history justified a corresponding hike in prices in everything from the beer, the booze to the food on offer, the implication being that you wouldn’t come to a pub like this if you didn’t have the financial wherewithal. Consequently, its clientele was comfortable North London middle-class and middle-aged. Sepia pictures of famous cricketers hung on the oak-panelled walls. The landlord was smug and famously arrogant, liable to refuse to serve customers if he didn’t like the look of them.
Talbot sensed Gary’s instant, instinctive unease as they walked in and they found a booth as far away from the bar as possible. Gary asked for a pint of lager; Talbot opted for his usual gin and tonic. It was early on a Saturday lunchtime. There was just a quiet susurrus of conversation and the occasional snorting laugh.
“Cheers,” Talbot said, raising his glass. “Thank you for coming round. And for the reimbursement. Much appreciated.”
“I shouldn’t be telling you this, Mr. Eastman, but I’m paying you back out of my own money. Axelrod Scaffolding’s going bust. Any day now. Bankrupt.”
He explained further. Mr. Axelrod had a chronic gambling problem. The firm seemed to be doing well but in the last year or so it had become apparent that in fact it was limping along, overburdened with debt. They had tendered for huge jobs—office blocks, bridges,
cantilevered and slung scaffolds, heavy-duty support scaffolds, temporary roofs—that were beyond their capacity and so they had been obliged to subcontract, thereby reducing their profit margins. Axelrod had gambled away the firm’s profits. And, final nail in the worm-eaten coffin, they were being sued by Camden Town Council.
“It’s a full-on nightmare,” Gary said. “But I personally didn’t want you to be a victim of Axelrod’s fuck-up. Apologies. We did the damage to your house—we should pay for it.”
Talbot asked what was going to happen, what was he going to do?
“Well, to be honest, I’d like to set up on my own,” Gary said. “I can pick up the stock and material very cheaply when he goes belly up. I would start small, you know—one lorry, a small yard, got all the metal.” He mimed a rectangular sign with his hands. “Hicksmith Scaffolding. Start with all the little numbers the big boys don’t want. Domestics, paint jobs, shoring. You do it well, it pays well—prompt. You buy another flatbed, more tubes, couplers, boards. Hire more scaffs. Jobs get bigger, money gets bigger.”
“Good luck to you,” Talbot said. “Makes a lot of sense.” He was happy watching Gary talk in his quietly intense, passionate way. “What does your wife think about it all?”
“I’m not married.”
“Sorry. I somehow got the impression you were. What about your girlfriend?”
“I’m, ah, single at the moment. The last ‘relationship’—well, didn’t work out.”
“Well, he travels furthest who travels alone.”
“Yeah, but I ain’t been paid for a month. Know what I mean? None of us have. We’re all skint.”
Talbot had an idea; he saw an opportunity present itself from nowhere.
“Here’s a thing,” he said. “What would you say to fifty pounds for an hour’s work?”
“I’d say thank you very much. When do I start?”
“You know I’m a photographer,” Talbot said, improvising quickly. “I’ve been given a rather nice commission.”
He was surprised at his quick-wittedness and his eloquence as he constructed his story for Gary. He had been commissioned by a “glossy magazine,” he said, to take portraits of Londoners. He could offer his subjects, whoever they were—taxi drivers, barmaids, High Court judges, nurses, politicians—a fee of £50 if they posed for him. “Even scaffolders,” he said.
“You’d give me fifty quid to take my photo? I’m on.”
“It’s not a snapshot. It would have to be at my studio. It takes about an hour—hence the fee to pay for your time.”
“I’m available, Mr. Eastman. Fifty pound is fifty pound.”
“What’re you doing, ah, tomorrow afternoon?” Talbot asked, trying to seem as unperturbed as possible.
“Nothing that can’t be shifted.”
“Why not come round about four o’clock? We’ll have you done before the pubs open.”
He saw Gary’s smile broaden as he calculated his good fortune.
“Come round to the garden gate,” Talbot continued. “You know, off the mews, where we first met.”
“Got you. Do I have to look smart, like?”
“No. Come as you are today. It’s your face we’re interested in.”
“I’ll be there. Four o’clock. On the dot.”
“You’ve got a very good face, Gary. Perfect for the job.”
“Have I? Who’d have thought? So much the better.”
“Fancy another pint?”
“Go on then, don’t mind if I do. What happened to your lip, by the way?”
“I…I was playing squash. Racquet hit me right in the mouth. Ouch.”
6
Alphonse counted the notes twice, expertly, with the deft hands of a practised teller, concentrating, pausing to lick the palp of his middle finger from time to time. It was as if he couldn’t really believe what he was holding—5,000 francs; 5,000 francs, moreover, for his old 1962 ultramarine Renault 4. Anny had asked him how much it would cost to buy his car and he had replied, 3,000 francs. Anny said she would give him 5,000 if he didn’t tell Jacques for twenty-four hours. Alphonse agreed instantly. Anny sensed that Alphonse and Jacques were in fact not that close. She had changed Troy’s pounds for francs in a bank the day before and emerged with great bundles of notes; 5,000 francs was about $1,000, she reckoned, maybe half the money Troy had given her. The car was the big expense, but it would take her safely and incognito to Spain where she could live cheaply. At this stage having her own car was key—was everything, she calculated. She didn’t need to depend on anybody else.
They were standing by the Renault in the underground car park of the apartment block.
“Why do you need a car?” Alphonse asked.
“It’s better that you don’t know,” she said. “I just do. I need my own car.”
“OK. For sure,” he said with a shrug and handed her the keys.
“Do you need insurance?” he asked. “I have a friend who can make you a deal.”
“No. I don’t need it. I’m insured to drive any car.”
“How is this?”
“It’s an American thing,” she lied.
Anny opened the rear door and slid her bag onto the seat. She was ready to go.
“You leave now?”
“Yes.”
“Your American friend said he would come back tomorrow.”
“He’s not my friend.”
“He say you his friend.”
“He’s an American spy. Espion.”
“I tell him—no, she is no stay here.”
“Good. Thank you, Alphonse. I’m going now. Tell Jacques I’ll call him.”
“Where do you go?”
“Amsterdam.”
She shook his hand and thanked him again and climbed in behind the wheel. Then she saw to her alarm that the gearstick was mounted in the dashboard. Alphonse spent five minutes explaining how the push-pull mechanism worked. She started the engine, put the car in gear and slowly drove out of the car park, up the ramp and onto the street. She drove on by instinct, following the large-lettered signs that directed her out of Paris. At the first petrol station she saw she pulled in and filled the tank and bought a large, detailed map of France.
She plotted her route south: Orléans, Tours, Poitiers, Angoulême, Bordeaux. From Bordeaux she could reach Spain in a couple of hours or so. San Sebastián, Bilbao, Pamplona—any of these towns would be good to hide up in and make plans.
Plans. Jacques had scheduled the press conference for the next day in a large concert hall in the middle of Paris. The whole French media would be there, he said. And some Americans. He was talking about dozens of journalists, it would be like a bomb going off when she told her story, he said. It would be a global news story, he said. “And it’s you, Anny Viklund, movie star. You’re the victim of this plot. You’re the target of the FBI. They won’t dare try to extradite you after we do this. Cause célèbre—it always works, the best way.”
He had been very passionate, almost as if he were the one in the spotlight, being asked to present himself, defend himself to the world’s press. He hadn’t even asked her if she wanted to do it, she had realised with mounting alarm, and that was what had freaked her out. It was entirely his plan. That was why she knew she had to start running again.
First, be alone, then shake off the FBI, then start making calls. Call who, though? She needed advice. Troy would always send her money if she needed more. She would be safer on her own, hiding. She needed Troy, not Jacques, now.
Outside Tours she stopped by a hypermarket, a Carrefour, and bought a tartan blanket and a pillow, as well as some packs of cookies and bottles of water. She managed to drive on as far as Poitiers before she felt tired. She parked in a side street near a school and settled down for the night in the rear seat with her blanket and pillow, locking the doors. She slept badl
y, waking every half-hour or so, and as soon as it was light she was on her way once more—direction Angoulême. The little Renault wasn’t speedy but it seemed to run well. She wasn’t in any hurry, after all—if she reached Spain in two days or five, it didn’t matter. The main thing was that not one single person in the world knew where she was.
7
“This is where our visitors stay,” Sister Lamorna said, leading Elfrida across the wide lawn behind the convent towards a building set around a courtyard.
“It used to be the stable block,” Sister Lamorna went on, gesturing. “But we’ve converted it into little units.” She smiled. “A bedroom and a shower room in each one. You eat your meals with us.”
The convent of St. Jude and St. Simon the Zealot was a converted country house, quite large, ashlar-faced with a four-column portico. A simple, plain wing had been added with dormers and symmetrical windows. To one side and separate was a large and rather ugly Victorian Gothic chapel built in variegated brick, charcoal grey and burnt orange. The house was set in its own generous grounds, some 200 acres, ringed by a high dry-stone wall. It wasn’t far from Taunton. Elfrida had caught a train there and a taxi had brought her from the station to St. Jude’s in about twenty minutes. Yet the impression she gained, once she entered through the gates past the lodges, was one of near-total isolation. Tall oaks and chestnuts blocked out much of the surrounding view and standing on the gravelled forecourt in front of the porticoed entrance and looking around her she could make out only a couple of distant farms. Deepest, darkest England, she thought. Perfect. It was a breezy, cool day with only brief bursts of sunshine. The great leafy mass of the trees ringing the estate shrugged and shifted as they were hit by the gusts of wind—almost animate and restless, it seemed to her, as if they were huge arboreal giants keen to make a move.
She and Sister Lamorna went through an arch into the stable yard. Some farm vehicles were parked there and half of the buildings seemed converted into workshops of various kinds. The short-pitched, dry sound of a hammer on metal came from one of them. On two sides were evenly spaced grey doors with numbers on them, one to six.