‘Charles!’
I opened my eyes. Outside it had gotten dark. How long had I been up here?
‘Charles!’ Bel called again from the hallway. ‘Phone!’
I hurried down the stairs. ‘It’s the All-Seeing Something,’ Bel said, handing me the telephone.
‘Oh yes,’ I said nonchalantly, ‘we’re playing tennis tomorrow morning.’ Carrying it to the recital room, I whispered, ‘M?’
‘C?’
‘The situation has changed. We have to move fast. Let’s get down to business.’
The All-Seeing Eye’s Gold-Seal Guarantee was no lie; in the few hours since I’d left him he had gathered all manner of information on my foe. Frank, as I had conjectured, came from a bad area, had gone to a terrible school that got burned down at least once a year, left with a pass grade in shadowy circumstances, had never been married although was suspected of fathering one or more children in said area, had attended a technical college where he studied Panel Beating (one year) and Advanced Panel Beating (one year), before a stint abroad with the UN Peacekeeping Force. ‘After the Peacekeepers,’ MacGillycuddy told me, ‘he started work in a scrap dealership in Dublin, and then got into architectural salvage. Last year he went into business for himself. He does quite well out of it.’
‘Architectural salvage? What’s that?’ I had an absurd image of Frank scuba-diving to the bottom of the sea and pulling up old libraries and Palladian casinos.
‘Essentially it’s about digging up old junk, cleaning it off and selling it on at an enormous profit,’ MacGillycuddy explained.
‘Like antiques?’
‘No…’ MacGillycuddy seemed reluctant to expand. ‘More like… put it this way, antiques are to architectural salvage what museums are to, em, grave-robbing.’
I blanched.
The hunting-ground of the architectural salveur, he went on, was the dilapidated mansion, the bankrupted family grocer’s, the outdated factory or hospital or train station: anywhere fallen on hard times, that the changing economy had rendered unviable and marked for death. To these the salveurs would flock like crows: to the auctions, the derelict rooms, the still-smouldering embers, where they would pick up for a song or for nothing at all the skeleton and innards of these institutions, anything that could conceivably be polished up and resold as an antiquity, a charming foible of the past, for installation in modern apartments, pubs and hotels. Mercilessly MacGillycuddy described how they uprooted floor tiles, pulled out banisters and columns, removed lamp fittings, doorknobs, shop signs, lanterns, tea kettles, sawed off piano legs and marble table tops, dismembered cornices and plasterwork, rifled through boxes for old picture-frames, photographs, advertisements, concert programmes, wardrobes for hats and wedding dresses and old-fashioned shoe-racks –
‘Stop!’ I cried. ‘No more!’
This was far, far worse than anything I had imagined. Good God, could such people really exist? And was he doing a salvage job on us? Could it be that we were nothing more than carrion to him, that he had caught the smell of death on us before we even guessed, picked out Bel as his personal treasure… Fury boiled in my veins. But at the same time, a tremulous voice inside me was whimpering: who is there to steal me away? Where is the mantelpiece out there for me?
‘Is everything all right?’ MacGillycuddy inquired.
What could I say? Everything was crashing down around me; suddenly, our destruction seemed not only inexorable, but perfectly logical. There was only one option remaining.
‘What were you saying earlier about faking your own death?’ I said.
4
‘It just seems so drastic…’
‘Not at all. You’d be surprised how many people are doing it these days.’
MacGillycuddy was sitting on the bench opposite, a sack of post resting at his heel. ‘People from all walks of life, from the mighty barrister to the humble greengrocer. It’s a lot more common than you’d think.’
A blackbird hopped about in the mouldering eaves above us. MacGillycuddy’s voice seemed to come from far away. ‘It’s the death part, that’s what’s bothering you. It’s a natural reaction, you hear that word and you start worrying. But the whole point is, you’re not dying. You’re pretending to die. Oh, it’s a big step, I’m not denying that. But really it’s not that much bigger than, say, getting a kitchen fitted, or buying a new car.’
‘Mmm…’ A thick fall of ivy hung down over the gazebo door, filtering damp light from the rambling orchard outside. Ivy was probably all that was holding it together, I thought morosely. No one came to this corner of the garden any more.
‘Another thing that people tend to worry about,’ he was saying, ‘is the loss of identity. There’s no getting round it, a man’s identity is something very special. Nothing tells you who you are like your identity, and losing it is something that each customer has to come to terms with in his or her own way.’ He shifted about on his seat, and raised a finger philosophically. ‘The important thing is to have a positive attitude. There’s no point faking your death if you’re not going to make the best of it. So what I say is, look at it as an opportunity. Don’t think of it as losing your real identity; think of it as trading in an old identity for a new one. How many people get to have two identities?’ He looked at me inquiringly.
‘Not many,’ I conceded.
‘Exactly. So have fun with it. Think of someone you’ve always wanted to be and – well, I’m sure you have plenty of ideas of your own. My point is, it needn’t be a negative thing. I’ve done a good few of these now and I can tell you honestly that in many ways I envy you, abandoning your life and your loved ones. It’s like a big holiday. But what do you think, does that sound any more attractive?’
I thought about it. Sales pitch aside, MacGillycuddy really did seem to have a good understanding of insurance fraud, and though there was still something gnawing at the pit of my stomach I was beginning to feel less apprehensive. ‘And you’re sure the policy’ll pay out?’
‘Sound as a bell.’ He thwacked the paper against his thigh. ‘Accidental death, can’t fail.’ A weak rumble came from outside as Mrs P hauled the garbage down the driveway to the gate. Seeing me still wavering, he continued: ‘Look. We’ve gone through the figures. You’re not the first person to be in this position. You care about your family. The bank wants to take their house away from them. You have a problem, this is the solution. It’s as simple as that.’ He paused Socratically, straightened his back, took a long draught from his glass of milk.
I clasped my fingers and studied the warped floorboards. Once upon a time, before it all went wrong, Patsy Olé and I had spent a happy night here against the clammy wood, serenaded by creaks and rustles and distant waves. And now to take my bow and disappear… The magnitude of it made it difficult to think straight; but magnitude was what was required now: courage, sacrifice, the graceful noblesse of the true aristocrat – sprezzatura, something grand and altruistic and absurd to fling in the teeth of the Golems –
‘Well?’
That line of Yeats’s: Fail, and that history turns into rubbish, All that great past to a trouble of fools –
‘I’ll do it,’ I said.
‘Good,’ said MacGillycuddy with a Faustian gleam, reaching into his jacket for a pencil and paper. ‘Now, as to the details…’
One might expect there to be a lot of work in bringing something as convoluted as a life to a close: so many loose ends to tie up! So many final movements to be choreographed! But to my surprise – to my dismay – after that morning it all simply fell into place, the intervening days eliding so that it seemed one minute I was there with MacGillycuddy in the decaying gazebo, and the next standing blearily at the curtains, watching Saturday dawn waxy and white, a carpet of frost on the lawn, gulls crying over the morning ferry in the crystalline blue distance; and then downstairs to pace out the void of those endless final hours, drifting through the rooms like an afternoon ghost, or fidgeting in the kitchen annoying Mrs P –
>
‘Aren’t you putting any ginseng in?’
‘No,’ taking down a jar of herbs from the cupboard, ‘I have told you already, Master Charles, we have no ginseng in the house –’
‘All right, what about some rhino horn, do we have any of that ground rhino horn?’
‘Master Charles, I do not know this recipe that you think of, but me I am very sure that ossobuco he does not need ginseng or rhino horn or Spanish fly or any of these things that you say.’
‘Well, good, but… I mean there’ll be oysters at least, won’t there?’
‘Yes, Master Charles, but please, it is difficult to work here if you are all the time watching over my shoulder…’
‘Oh – all right.’
‘And you will not be able to eat dinner if you keep eating all those biscuits.’
‘I can’t help it,’ I said apologetically, putting the lid back on the tin. ‘I don’t seem able to stop, it must be nerves or something.’
‘Mmm.’ She took a pinch of coriander from a jar and stirred it into a smoking pan. ‘Master Charles, excuse me but I hear you talking with Miss Bel a few days…’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes,’ she continued hesitantly, keeping her back to me, ‘when you say the banks are coming to take away the house…’
‘I see.’
She turned to face me now; lines of distress stood out around her worn eyes. ‘What will happen, Master Charles? Where will we go?’
I didn’t feel like I ought to discuss it with her, the matter being primarily one for the family; nevertheless, she deserved some reassurance. ‘I shouldn’t worry about the bank, Mrs P. It’s a simple crossed wire, that’s all.’ I put a hand on her shoulder and added in a confidential tone: ‘Anyway, I’m taking care of it.’
She didn’t seem to take much comfort from this, but turned without further comment back to the cooker.
‘I’ll go and check on the dining room,’ I said airily, stretching myself. ‘You’ll be all right in here, won’t you? You’re not feeling, you know, mad or anything?’ She rattled a saucepan by way of reply. On my way out I paused to look back at her, trying to store the image: red elbows amid steaming pots, tight bun of hair, the kindly curve of her jowl…
‘Ow!’
… and pushed through the door right into Bel. ‘Sorry,’ I reached down to help her up. ‘Here, let me take that…’
‘It’s okay – hang on, are you all right?’
‘Me? Yes, of course. Something in my eye, that’s all.’
I followed her into the dining room, where she set down her casket and brushed the dust from her blouse.
‘How much are you planning on bringing down? Because there’s boxes of Mother’s family’s stuff in the attic, if you want…’
‘Actually, I don’t think we could fit much more.’ We cast our eyes over the room.
‘It looks like Aladdin’s cave…’ From every corner treasures winked and glistened: bracelets, rings and ankle chains, jade and lapis, garnets and sapphires, Hindu statuettes, Turkish throw-rugs, antique pistols and scimitars, several inscrutable objets from Africa, spooky green Tahitian pearls, a Byzantine loros, amulets, orreries… ‘I don’t know Charles, it seems so ostentatious. I mean, if Caligula were coming to dinner, it might make sense. But it’s Laura. And she’s coming to talk about insurance.’
‘Well, there’s lots of things here she can insure, don’t you think she’ll be happy about that?’
‘You should leave out a calculator and some actuarial tables, I bet that would get her going.’
‘Yes, that’s very helpful, now could you hold the ladder a moment…’
Initially, when I realized I had double-booked, as it were, I thought I would have to cancel dinner. On the face of it, there didn’t seem much point in sparking off a romance with Laura if I were going to be for all intents and purposes dead next morning. But the more I thought about it – how long I had waited for this night to come, how many times I had dreamed of the moment she would walk through the door – the more I began to wonder if the two events were in some way connected. Could it be that my first meeting with Laura and my flight from Amaurot were meant to coincide? Was this Destiny showing her hand, telling me that our fates were to remain intertwined? If the bond between us were as strong as I felt, could it be – I hardly dared think it – could it be that we might somehow go on together, beyond the grave, so to speak? That she would come with me into my new life?
In short, though it was a little inconvenient, I decided that the dinner would go ahead after all. Given the circumstances, however, and our mutual destiny notwithstanding, I thought it would be wise to hurry things along as much as possible. This was why I had inserted as many aphrodisiacs into the menu as Mrs P would allow, and why I had gathered up the family valuables from their various niches around the house and transferred them en masse into the dining room for the evening (though I had an ulterior motive for the latter action which would remain secret until much later). Bel was probably right, it probably was ostentatious, but it was the last chance I would have to blind anyone with fabulous displays of wealth, and I thought I should make the most of it. Furthermore, the pragmatist in me was urging me to do my romancing while I had access to the necessary hardware, viz., a bed; one didn’t want to rush these things, but at the same time I didn’t know where I’d be two days from now, and Casanova himself might have been at a loss if after all his hard work he had to invite his paramours back to a nice patch of grass, or behind a skip.
‘I meant to ask – yuck, Charles, where did you find this?’
‘That’s called shunga, it’s a very old and beautiful Japanese art form…’ propping it up beside a Victorian cameo brooch.
‘What’s he doing to her? Does he have two penises? – I meant to ask you about Mrs P, didn’t you give her the week off?’
‘Yes, but –’
‘Because she’s been slaving in there all day.’
‘Yes, but I could hardly cook dinner myself, could I? Not after last time, I mean I don’t want to poison the girl –’
‘The thing is – the topaz would be nice beside the chryselephantine, no the little ivory thing – I’m beginning to think you were right about her being a bit, you know… because you mightn’t have heard, but these last few nights she’s been sort of screaming…’
‘Screaming?’
‘Well, maybe not exactly screaming, but calling out for someone.’
‘You’re sure it’s not the peacocks?’ Since their infestation, the peacocks had been making a horrendous racket, the noise made my blood run cold –
‘No, it’s definitely her. Every night at three or four a.m. It’s frightening. I asked her today wasn’t she sleeping well and she didn’t seem to know what I was talking about.’
‘Her cooking doesn’t seem to be affected, though.’
‘But she shouldn’t be working, Charles. She’s worn out. Have I told you my theory about her? I’ve developed a theory about her.’
‘Hmmm?’ descending the ladder and pacing backwards to view the display from the far end of the dining table.
‘I think it’s what happened in Kosovo. You know she used to watch all those news reports. She was practically addicted. I think it must have upset her more than she let on.’
‘Mmm.’ I squinted at the dresser through a frame of thumbs and forefingers. ‘Isn’t all that over now, though? Didn’t NATO win?’ I seemed to remember the builders giving out recently about NATO winning some war by dropping bombs on people somewhere else.
‘Well, maybe it’s a delayed reaction, like, now that it’s over and the Kosovans are returning home, now it’s hitting her. Maybe the same thing happened to her when the Serbs invaded Bosnia or Croatia or wherever she’s from… God, Charles, can you imagine what it was like, all those unfortunate people in those miserable camps just waiting and listening to horror stories about the ones who didn’t escape – no wonder she has nightmares…’
‘After tonight, s
he can have a nice long rest,’ I said. The hoard seemed to produce a light of its own, a very old light that pulsated and whispered through it –
‘After next week she’ll be out of a job,’ Bel muttered, and looked at her watch. ‘Are you finished? I should get going.’
‘Oh, okay, thanks for helping,’ scrambling over to take her arm, ‘and you’ll be back for tonight, won’t you?’
‘Yes, probably – why are you looking at me like that?’
‘No reason, I just think it would be, you know, nice to see you…’
She arched her eyebrows sceptically. ‘All right, I’ll try. But I have to go.’ Outside the van crunched up the driveway. ‘Shit!’ She span off upstairs. I listened to her clatter back down and grab her coat from the closet, greeting Frank at the door and disappearing in a happy rush of conversation; and for a moment longer I stood rocking on my heels as if I’d been hit over the head. Tonight, I told myself, taking a breath: there would be time to talk tonight. Now, with an hour or two yet remaining, I returned to my lonely wandering through the house, from room to empty room, with butterflies in my stomach and the light blurring and gleaming along the edges of everything I looked upon as if calling out to me goodbye, goodbye –
The telephone was ringing downstairs. ‘Eh, hello, is that… C?’
‘Oh blast it, MacGillycuddy, what is it this time?’