by Sarah Dunant
To his credit, his gaze never wavered once; the eyes stayed stapled to mine, unblinking and steady. “What did you tell the police, Marla?” And there was, I believe, just a touch of muscle to be heard this time.
“Just about as much of the truth as you did.” I was definitely feeling better. “So you’ve got nothing to worry about.”
He sat back and regarded me with something near to confusion. Then he lifted his left hand a little and shot a half look over his shoulder. The waiter who had been standing to attention by the sweets trolley flung himself toward the table, menus in hand. He muttered a good evening into his bow tie and handed me a leather-bound volume.
“Actually, if you don’t mind, I don’t think we’re ready to order yet,” I said loudly.
The waiter shot me a look of horror, then turned to Lenny with a plea for guidance.
“We’ll take a bottle of wine.” Lenny’s voice was quiet, but designed to be heard. “White, I think. Maybe a Chablis or an Entre-Deux-Mers. What do you think, Marla?” He looked at me but gave me no time to answer. “And we’d like two plates of smoked salmon, and bread. As soon as possible, please.” He flashed a smile at the waiter, who nodded gratefully. Male collusion in the face of female emotion. If I said any more it would only reinforce the impression of me as distraught and potentially out of control. Lenny, it seemed, was attempting to reestablish himself. I bided my time. The waiter scuttled for home.
“I think we should wait until the food comes, don’t you?” Lenny said evenly. “If we start to talk now, the waiter will only interrupt us.”
Welcome back, Lenny. I preferred this version. It was more real. I turned and looked out of the window. It was almost night. No policemen had come to bundle us into waiting cars. That surely meant they had not found her yet. And if not yet, then we would have to wait till morning. Morning. A whole night on the rocks. But I would not think of that now, or the sorrow of it would turn me stupid and he would get the better of me.
In the kitchen, they busted a gut to please the bereaved. The salmon arrived minutes later, gleaming pink strips of it, with little wedges of lemon decorating each plate and a mound of thinly sliced brown bread. The candle between us flickered as Lenny unfurled his napkin. Silver. Salmon. Wine. It was like some dreadful travesty of a lovers’ meal. The waiter presented the Entre-Deux-Mers, uncorked it, and poured a little into Lenny’s glass. He picked it up and handed it to me. Memories are made of this. I took it and, with deliberate ceremony, poured it slowly over my plate of salmon. The waiter stiffened. Lenny smiled.
“That’s fine,” he said, nodding. The waiter poured two full glasses, carefully avoiding my eyes, then put the bottle in the ice bucket and made a run for home. I pushed away my plate and sat back in my chair. Lenny took a sip of wine and peeled off a strip of salmon. He ate it slowly, watching me. Then he said, “So, you want to know what happened. But you know already. Surely you made your decisions a long time ago, Marla. Nothing I say now will change your mind.”
He was growing more like Lenny with every second. It was like watching someone change size: Alice eating the cake in order to get through the door. I took the key off the table. In this fairy tale, no one was leaving.
“Why don’t you tell me anyway?” I said. “I enjoy stories.”
“Oh, you really do hate me, don’t you, Marla? I think even I underestimated how much. So—you want to know. Even though you won’t believe me. Well, maybe that doesn’t matter. But let me say one thing. The reason you won’t believe me is that you can’t possibly afford to. You do know that, don’t you? You simply can’t take that risk. Because, of course, if you did, you’d have no one to blame. And no one to hate. And you need both of those things much more than you need the truth. Isn’t that right?”
I felt like yawning, a great, ostentatious yawn, huge and ugly, like a scream from a Francis Bacon painting. But instead I kept my mouth tight shut, teeth clamped together until my jaw ached. I would say nothing. I would not join in his games.
He waited awhile, then said quietly, “The fact is I don’t know what happened. I swear that’s the truth. We had crossed the bridge and were about to head back to the car when Elly decided to walk down to the edge of the gorge. That’s all I know. The ground was wet, she was wearing those damn stupid plastic sandals of hers. They had no grip. The railing was rotten … when she slipped it couldn’t hold her weight. It couldn’t save her. And neither could I … I was walking away. All I heard was the scream …” He broke off, and his face was white, drained of blood. “There’s no more to tell. That’s it.”
I nodded. “Don’t give it another thought, Lenny. It could have happened to anyone. I wonder, have you called Indigo yet? Maybe the wine should have been champagne.”
It was beneath the belt, but that was my intention. I wanted him to get mad, to lose control, to give himself away. He didn’t rise to it. I pushed further. “And that’s really all you have to say, is it, Lenny?”
“Oh no, Marla. That’s nothing. Nothing at all. But it’s all you want to hear.” This time the trail of fuel ignited. “Elly was right. There’s no point in telling you the whole truth. It would destroy you to have to hear it. So why don’t we stop playing games, huh? Why don’t you just go to the police? Tell them your sordid little tale. Blow it all sky-high. You’ve got the dynamite strapped all over your body. Just light the fuse. That way we all go up, and the truth gets buried forever with the bodies. Then you’ll never have to hear it. Just as well, huh? Because how could you bear it? Cover your ears against it, Marla. It would microwave your brain. My God, J.T. must have seen you coming. The original innocent. His lucky day. Drink your wine, Marla, and let’s do it. Call those quaint Scottish policemen and tell them a story that’ll burn their ears off. Get it over with now.”
He was standing up, pulling away his chair, the last few words public knowledge. From the back room the maître d’ burst forth, almost rupturing himself to get to us. Across the room, the thin-lipped couple paused over their sorbets. The woman turned, pale blue permed head snapping to attention at the possibility of the socially outrageous.
“Sir, can I be of assistance?” The maître d’ like a guardsman.
“Yes. The lady would like to make a phone call.”
The maître d’ looked toward me. I avoided his eyes and said nothing.
“Madam … I’m afraid we have no facilities in the dining room—if you’d care to accompany me to the main desk, or perhaps give me the number …” His voice drained away. I sat serenely, contemplating the tablecloth. I felt an exchange of looks between him and Lenny. From a table by the door, someone giggled and was fiercely hushed. The room vibrated with tension. Then Lenny said softly, “I’m sorry to have troubled you. Madam seems to have changed her mind. Perhaps you could bring her a glass of water.”
The assembled company let out the breath they had been holding while the maître d’ brought a jug of water, then made for the sanctuary of the kitchen. Behind closed doors you could feel people listening. Lenny sat down.
“Very good,” I said after a while, still in communion with the tablecloth. “So, what do you want?”
“To tell the truth,” he said quietly. “But only if you are willing to hear it.”
This time I looked up. Across the table I saw a good-looking man with a kind of anger in his eyes. I noticed furrows I had not seen before. A sallowness of the skin. For the first time I could imagine a Lenny who was not forever young and invincible. I felt for the nugget of strength inside me. I had tended it well. It was still there, hard and sure. I was safe.
“All right,” I said. “You’ve made your point. I’m listening.”
“Good.” He picked up his glass and sipped it. Then pushed it to one side. And this, for what it is worth, is what he told me. I gave him—and so will give you—the courtesy of no interruption.
“I had been waiting to meet you, Marla. Elly had told me so much about you. You had been painted in such bright colors—as one of nature
’s originals, not quite of this world. She had told me how you had grown up together. How hard it was for you, how brilliant you were, brilliant and strange. Oh, I had quite a picture of you: a kind of modern-day Virginia Woolf, too sensitive for the sun, needing the shade of others to nurture you and let you flower. It appealed to me. I have always had a certain admiration for English eccentrics. A product of my New England upbringing—the indoctrination that we are closer in spirit to Europe than to the barbarian Midwest. And Elly made such a case for you. I think even then she was trying to assuage her guilt at having left you. I never did penetrate the mystery of your friendship. You were Elly’s secret, and she was proud of you. So, you see, when we finally met, you were quite a disappointment. Not so much strange as impenetrable. All granite and ice, with your English nose in the air. We were fated to be enemies, it seems. Well, I guess she had made it sound pretty bad, huh? Which it was, but not entirely in the way she thought. Don’t worry, Marla, I’m not about to dazzle you with revisionism or turn myself into some misunderstood, much-maligned victim. Nothing so crass. I’m just looking to set the record straight.
“Yes, there was trouble between us. Some of it was a result of the job. She had found it very exciting in the beginning. Of course, everyone does. But when you come down to it, a job is just a job. Except for the few high moments, the rest is just real life. And that’s what she wasn’t prepared for—the real life in the middle, the times when there was nothing to do, when you got up, ate, lived a little, and then went back to bed. The hibernation months—being rather than doing. She found that very hard. Maybe you recognize that in her. Anyway, it got worse, and when she started making demands, I began backing off. I’m not particularly good at being private with people. Maybe you’ve noticed that too. On the other hand, I still loved her. Ah … now that hurts, doesn’t it, Marla? I can feel it in you. Well, there’s nothing I can do to ease your pain. I’m sorry. You’re going to have to bite on it. I loved her, but I didn’t totally trust her. That make it any better?
“To be fair, I didn’t single her out that way. I don’t totally trust anyone. I never have. That particular personality defect predates my professional life. I had a somewhat eccentric childhood, a lot of money making up for a lack of attention. If we had the time, we could discuss it, but we don’t. So let’s just say I kept some of my defenses up. You know the chronology as well as I do. She got higher and less in control, and I didn’t help her. Unforgivable behavior, huh, Marla? Except there are some things you don’t know. Because this is where our ‘love story’ comes in. And where the versions of the truth begin to differ.
“Let’s talk about California, Marla—J.T., the fourth character in this domestic drama. Let’s talk about him, the things he told you, the things you believed. Such an important part he played in all of this. He should be here now, don’t you agree, completing the circle?
“So, what exactly did you learn under the stars in his mountain retreat? Well, let me see if I can guess. That he and I met in Colombia in ’76, when he was the initiate and I was the novice. That we hit it off together; he broke bread with me, taught me some ground rules, and set me off on the road. All this is true, give or take a little goodwill. So how did it go then? No doubt he described to you how I became full of hubris, grew careless, and how I almost fell. Almost, because—of course—he came to my rescue. And how, following that near tragedy, we agreed to disentangle ourselves professionally but stayed good friends. Then he decided to retire, hit a streak of bad luck, found himself in danger, and I stepped in with a little homicide to repay the debt. But that my methods offended his implacable sense of morality, so when my wickedness was discovered, he could do no less than stand by and watch me get my just deserts. Have I got it more or less correct, Marla? Yes, I think I have. And you believed him. Oh, I can understand that. It must have been music to your ears. There it was, the justification for what you already felt, the reason for saving Elly from this murdering fiend.
“That is what you believe. I know nothing I can say will shake that conviction, but you won’t mind if I waste your time with an alternative version. I’ll make it brief. The truth is I did not become careless, or greedy. The truth is I was set up. Not obviously, or unsubtly, but set up all the same. And, just to complicate matters, I was set up by the man who saved me. A lesson. From the master to the pupil, the pupil who was learning too fast and daring to presume to show it. That straightened me out. It took me a while to recover my name, and my confidence. And to find out the truth. Our relationship cooled, although we stayed drinking companions. Then came the bust, about which you know most of the facts but not who was behind them. Who, for instance, really paid the man from the East to tamper with a certain brake cable.
“It was, of course, the same man who stood to gain from the silence of the river. The same man who could finally use the evidence to point the finger at someone else, someone he had framed once before. However, since these are exactly the kinds of things you don’t want to hear, I won’t bother pursuing them. But the truth is there, should you care to look at it.
“So, where did Elly and I fit into all of this? Well, as you know—and I have to hand it to you, Marla, for an English academic you have become very well versed in the intricacies of the narcotics underworld—Tyler got out of jail around the time Elly and I were in Colombia for the second trip, when things were beginning to splinter between us. The trip was bad enough. But when we got home I discovered that we were being watched. With Tyler a free man, it made me nervous. If he was really dumb enough to believe that I had killed his wife, then he might also be dumb enough to try for poetic revenge. It would have been easier to tell Elly the whole story, only by then she was in no fit state to listen. Five miles high and suffering from vertigo. The only thing to do was get her out of it. If Tyler could be made to believe that she’d left me, then maybe he’d leave her alone. It was obvious we were near some kind of bust-up anyway. I simply did nothing to stop it. As I’m sure she told you. It was a little brutal, I grant you, but I had no choice. With Elly out of the way, I could get on with watching the watchers.
“It was then, about a month later, I heard that Elly was in California. Now, this is where your imagination comes in, Marla. I want you to do the impossible. Try to put yourself in my position. What was I to think? On the one hand, why shouldn’t she go there? She thought J.T. and I were friends. If she needed to talk, then J.T. was a logical choice of confidant. But I have told you I have a suspicious nature. I owe my life to it. She had left New York hating me. There were other reasons she could have chosen California. And there were other stories J.T. could have told her, certain fairy tales—of which you know him to be a connoisseur. She was in exactly the frame of mind where she might have believed them. So they talked, and then, as you know, she came home, walked back into my life and said not a word about where she had been. J.T. had sworn her to secrecy. We both know that now. But not then. Then all I saw were the facts. Elly had spent time with a man who had tried to destroy me, and she had kept the visit a secret. I did not feel reassured. Yet here she was arriving home revitalized, determined that, if only I would give up the profession, we could have a future together. What if she knew something I didn’t? How could I trust her? She was claiming love, but there was a kind of tension about her, as if she didn’t quite believe the script either.
“Well, we agreed to try again. But you can see now it was doomed. California was like a glass wall between us. I couldn’t forget it, and I couldn’t disregard it either. The irony was that I too had given some thought to winding it up. Against the odds, I had missed her, and she could have been a reason for finding something else to do with my life. Aaah, I feel another rage growing in you, Marla. My admission of vulnerability seems to disgust you. It clouds the picture, and we wouldn’t want any gray areas in a story which is so beautifully black-and-white, would we?
“Back to the facts. I let it be known that I was taking temporary retirement. To quieten her, and to for
ce them—whoever they were—to tempt me back. It didn’t take long. A month or so later I was approached by two English ‘businessmen.’ They needed my help, they said. They were running a small, successful organization, but their connections were Asian rather than South American—trading in hash. They could see the writing on the wall—it wasn’t hard; people were lining up to read it. America’s coke market was reaching saturation point. With thirty-five billion dollars going up people’s noses every year, it was already the biggest business in the U.S. behind the auto industry. And every step outside the law. You could see the problem. It was becoming too big to be tolerated. But while America was closing up, Europe was still wide open. The appetite had been created, all that was needed was increased supplies. I had built up a reputation. They came to me for a feasibility study, a few schemes and the odd trial run. And they were willing to pay for it. A lot of money, too much to refuse. Too much altogether, all things considered, which made it even more interesting. I said yes. And began my research.
“I won’t bore you with my scholarship. It was a simple question of routes and cargos. Rumor had it that Spain was the best port of entry, but I wasn’t sure. Concerned parties were putting a good deal of pressure on Spanish authorities to get their act together. In the old days Ireland had been the golden trail, sliding it in through Shannon. The amounts of hash spirited through had become folklore. The obvious holes had been plugged, of course, but sometimes it pays to be old-fashioned, to go to the one place no one expects you to. So I decided to look into resurrecting old glories. I took a trip to Britain to check locations, and I ended up in London. It was then that I had another idea—about Elly and me. I will not insult you by pretending it was entirely philanthropic. I still didn’t know for sure which side she was on. And by now I was certain that the whole deal was some kind of a setup. I just didn’t know how. The trip would be the test. If she really knew nothing, she would come with me. If not—well, I would deal with that if and when it happened. But whatever my motives, the trip at least was real. And the very glorious Inverlochy Metropole was part of it. You can check. All arrangements made at the tourist office in London, signed, sealed, and dated. You know the date. It was the day before your flight to New York.