by Sarah Dunant
By the time I was mobile again there was nothing left of the day and whatever my id was saying to my ego (or was it the other way round?) I could have barely afforded the eye operation anymore anyway. I was even going to be hard-pushed to fulfill my promise to the Holloway Road windscreen washer.
I drove home via his set of traffic lights, but I was too late. He’d already gone. Shame. Given my present state of schizophrenia, I might well have given the money to someone else by tomorrow morning.
I got back to four messages. The first two were from Amy. “Hi, Hannah … Hannah …?”
Then the second, slow, very deliberate: “Hello. This is Amy. Mum says you can take me to the cinema on Saturday, but tonight I have to go to bed early. What?” A mumble in the background. “And she says thank you. She’ll call you soon.” More mumbling, a small “bye,” then finally a click.
The third message was even less intelligible, the accent thick as olive paste. “Missa Woolff, diz is Marcella Gavarona, you call me about dat little shit Marchant. Yesa, I can tell you. You call, I tell you all.”
Well, at last. Someone who had something to say. It was seven o’clock in Milan. I opened a bottle of wine—Italian, of course—and dialed her number.
The woman who answered couldn’t speak any English at all. But eventually she worked out what I wanted. She put down the receiver and I heard her yell “Signora Gavarona” a number of times. I got the impression it was a big place.
The tap of the heels on the tiles gave her away. I almost didn’t need to go to Milan to meet this one. She would be size 12, nipped at the waist, have black stockings, black hair, shiny shoes, and some serious eye makeup. The apartment would be originally sixteenth century, one of those gorgeous urban numbers that went on for miles, and it would be lovingly and expensively restored. She’d probably be getting ready to go out to dinner with her businessman husband, unless of course he was already in jail for offering bribes. Almost made me wish I had studied Italian instead of French.
“Ah yes, Miss Wolfe. You want to know about Maurice Marchant? I come to him last year, in May it was, because I hear that he is very good at the faces. So I ask him to do a little lift. You know, not the big cut, just a tuck around the eyes, give it a little more cheekbone. He say yes, he has developed a special new mini-lift, no marks, no problem.
“It is not cheap, not cheap at all, but is good. Until six months later when my face, she go funny on one side, droppy, pulled. Imagine. I cannot go out of the apartment, I cannot do anything. I am absolutely like a—what do you say?—leeper. So I ring him up. He say he never heard of such a thing. I tell him I have it. He say I must come back. So, I get on a plane with a big bandage on my face and I come to him. He looks, he say no good. He does it again. But it’s still not right. Still I have little lumpy bits in the cheek. He say I am imagining them, that it is fine now. I say he is bad doctor. And I want my money back. Or I make big trouble for him, make sure everybody knows what he does.”
Oh …? Horse’s head in the bed, nails in the sponge. All my life I’ve wanted to be in one of these plots. I could hardly contain my excitement. “So what happened?”
“What happen? He doesn’t give it. He say there’s nothing more he can do.”
“And?”
“And so he is a pig. And I tell everybody this, all the best women in Milan. He is finished here. Kaput. Over. And if you want to put this in your newspaper, I say it to you happily. But, please, no real name and no photos, OK?”
Good-bye, Signora Gavarona, and may all of your facelifts be droppy ones.
Had there not been a last message to follow I might have given way to the slough of despond. As it was I was saved by the beep.
“Hello. Hannah, this is Marty Tranchant, Pete Pantin’s manager. I gather you’re interested in doing a feature on him? I’ve faxed you some stuff and arranged some tickets for you to see his gig tonight at the Camden Palace, second set, starts around 10:30. Maybe you could catch a word with him afterward. Though he might be a little tired. It’s great that the Guardian sees him as a postfeminist figure. I know that’s going to knock him out. He’s very into politics and girl talk.”
If my flat had been big enough, I would have run to the fax machine. The photos were wonderful: Pete in a Paul Smith suit with one foot on the body of a half-naked woman who was snarling into the camera. There was also a magnificent piece of PR-speak that called him a poet of the sex war.
I grabbed a couple of hours’ sleep, then dressed for the occasion. All this late-night trucking. Just seemed a shame I wasn’t having more fun.
Camden Palace on a Tuesday night. For the last couple of years it’s made me feel old just driving past the place. I tell you I’d be more tempted to try more music if I didn’t feel I could have given birth to most of its fans. Tonight, though, was different. For once I didn’t feel out of place. But then Pete had been around a long time. In the foyer I counted at least a dozen balding pates and donkey jackets that were old with, rather than despite, their owners. Obviously he had taken some of his fans with him.
I sat at the back. The songs were dire—a touch of the Robert Blys over a bed of decidedly old-fashioned rock ’n’ roll. My favorite was “Drumming in the Dark”: “You’re not the only one who hurts, babe. If you want it equal, you got to take it as well as dish it out.”
Mind you, the old boys seemed to like it. Maybe they were all being pursued by the Child Support Agency. Maybe Pete was, too.
The second set ended around midnight. I waited till the crush had gone and then found the stage door. I told the doorman Pete was expecting me, but he turned out to be busy. So I waited. He took his time.
It was getting on for two when the call came. He was sitting in his dressing room, freshly showered in a clean shirt and new old jeans, with a bottle of Foster’s and a Jay McInerney novel on the table. He obviously thought he looked OK. He was wrong. The years had taken their toll on him. The face was puffy round the edges and there was still a definite straining at certain key trouser seams. Either Maurice had really blown it or whatever fat had been sucked out Pete had sucked back in again. Seeing the overstretched crotch reminded me of that divine moment in Spinal Tap when the bass guitarist sets off the security alarm at the airport with a roll of coins stuffed down his inside trouser leg. Now there’s an operation that would make Marchant’s fortune. I had trouble not laughing.
He got up to greet me. “Hi. Sorry for the wait. Business matters. So, d’you enjoy the set?”
I nodded and found myself gushing out an enthusiasm I didn’t feel. Rock ’n’ roll. That’s the amazing thing—makes everyone sixteen again.
I asked him for his autograph first. Well, I had this sneaking suspicion that he wouldn’t want to give it to me later, and I needed to have an example of his handwriting to compare. He signed his name with a flourish. It was of course unreadable. So I asked him to write a little dedication above it.
To Hannah. May she always write the truth. “Thanks,” I simpered. “I’ll do my best.”
I won’t insult you with the interview. Released from the discipline of a song lyric, his views on sexual politics were about as profound as Margaret Thatcher’s, although somewhat more muddled, caught as he was between liberal claptrap and male backlash. But then my attempt at impersonating a Guardian journalist was hardly more successful. Still, at least we didn’t row. Until, that is, we got onto the bit about image, and how much he hated living in a society that emphasized what you looked like rather than what you were.
“You really sympathize with women about that, do you?”
“Sure. That’s what the new album’s all about. Men and women both being true to themselves and not to some image that others have built up for them.”
“So you don’t mind—I mean not being a sex symbol anymore?”
And he laughed. “I think people can be attractive at any age, don’t you? As your body gets older, then so does your mind. That’s what it’s all about.”
“I
couldn’t agree more,” I said, and we grinned at each other. “In which case why did you have the liposuction done?”
“What?” You could see he was absolutely stunned.
“The liposuction on your thighs. Was that … like … your decision? I mean I’ve heard it said that it was your way of showing solidarity with the pressure that women are under. Except I gather it didn’t go too well.”
“Who told you about that? Who told you about that? That fucking greaseball Marchant. Did you get it from him?”
“Who’s Marchant?” I asked. “No, I heard it from another journalist. Sorry, I didn’t know it was sensitive. I thought you knew…. It’s all around. It’s made you a bit of a hero figure for women, actually. Because you did it, and then when you weren’t satisfied you complained. Lots of women don’t feel they have the courage to do that. It’s like you showed us how to connect our sensitivities to our aggression.”
But he wasn’t listening (just as well, given the crap I was talking). He had gone a strange shade of puce, a bit like a frog blowing up with air, and he was on his feet shouting.
“Get the fuck out of here. This is invasion of privacy, that’s what this is. I’ve never had anything done to myself. Nothing at all, you hear. And if you say I did, I’ll sue you. It’s people like you who ruined my fucking career first time around. You aren’t going to do it again. Fucking liberty. Mangy old tart …”
I left him exploring the outer reaches of his New Man vocabulary. It was a good deal more vivid than his songs.
I stood out on the pavement enjoying the night’s silence. Well, there you go—the only chance I ever had of a onenight stand with a rock ’n’ roll star and I blew it. What the hell. I always liked Jackson Browne more anyway. There was something more real about his pain.
Once again it was the middle of the night and I was wide awake. This case was turning my body clock around. At least no one had nicked the car.
I drove into town and found an all-night café just off Leicester Square that I used to frequent when my nights were about having fun. It was quieter than I remembered. Or maybe I was. And the prices had gone up. I ordered a cappuccino and a toasted sandwich. A guy came out and started to play stylish, lazy. It sounded quite nice. I settled myself down, dug out the files and my little black book (PIs don’t have lovers, they just have suspects), and did some office work.
First I laid out the anonymous note to Maurice Marchant on the table and put Pete Pantin’s vacuous message next to it. They had been written by two different people, although of course that in itself didn’t prove anything. I put a pencil cross by his name. I had now followed up on six of the suspects. And none of them—alive, dead, or living in Bermuda—seemed quite the sort to conduct a sustained campaign of malice against that “greaseball” Marchant.
Or maybe the reason I wasn’t getting anywhere was that I was looking in the wrong place. With no one else clamoring for my attention, my thoughts strayed back to little Lola, and that stubborn silence of hers. But even if I had got her wrong, it still didn’t make any sense. She might have been capable of malicious intent, but then why bother to pay herself seven hundred pounds to pretend it wasn’t? There was a copy of her application form in her file, but it was typed. The signature was big and rather childish and, anyway, didn’t have that many letters in common with the note. There was perhaps a certain similarity between the s’s, but the m’s and a’s looked totally different. But presumably you’d make an effort to disguise yourself. Frank would no doubt be able to dig out a handwriting expert from his old police Filofax, but there was no point in calling in precious favors unless I had more than one suspect to show him. In the absence of anyone more interesting I promoted her higher up the list. Her application form included a reference from a salon in West London. I made a note to go there the next day.
I had a second cappuccino and a doughnut. The pianist had stopped caressing the ivories and someone had put on a tape. Brian Ferry’s greatest hits. I paid the bill to the strains of “Let’s Stay Together.” And here’s one for a certain family in Islington. Hey, hey, Colin, the message is in the words.
It was already light outside as I shoveled all the stuff in the car. And later than I thought. Detecting can be engrossing business. Already after five. Well, tomorrow was going to be a full day.
On the road up past St. Pancras, a works lorry was unloading a whole set of orange bollards. Just what the new British Library needed. More pneumatic drills. I turned east to avoid it, round the back of Kings Cross, then out up by the Caledonian Road. I wasn’t that far from Kate’s house. Well, well. Funny the way your wheels turn when you’re not thinking about it. I crossed into the Liverpool Road and let the car do the driving.
Their street was awash with bird noise. A bloody great dawn chorus scattered over a line of elder trees, with a couple of fat blackbirds like conductors in evening dress leading the throng. Surprised anyone was still asleep, really. I parked a few yards down from the house and waited. I still wasn’t thinking. If you’d asked me, I probably would have said that no private eye likes to waste a good night’s work. And one suspect is much like another. I wouldn’t have believed it of course, but then that’s hardly the point. When I got tired of the birds, I played with the radio, bouncing my way up and down the dial. Lots of people wished me good morning. I had no reason to believe them. They also gave me time checks. The hour between six and seven positively sped by.
Three times a week, Kate had said. Not necessarily today, so it was up to fate and the calendar. At 7:04 a light went on in one of the upstairs windows. The bathroom. I knew it well; many a time I had sat on the edge of the bath while children water-bombed me or checked out the medicine cupboard on the nights I baby-sat, just in case. The light snapped off again. I counted the steps down from the first floor. The front door opened and Colin came out wearing a gray tracksuit. He was carrying a suit on a hanger and a plastic bag and briefcase. He trotted down the street away from me to his car. I watched him go.
I tried to look at him as someone else would, someone more neutral than I. He must be—what?—forty-one, fortytwo now. Not a bad figure, spreading just a little (the imaginary gym wasn’t doing much to help that) and the hairstyle a little too seventies for my taste. But at least he still had some hair, and a reasonable face underneath it. Mr. Average, really. Middle class, middle aged, and middle browed (and none the worse for that, my girl, I heard my mother say, for all that you sneer at it).
He beeped his key at the car, which lit up in anticipation. That’s another thing I hate about him. Him and his gadgets. He carefully hung up the suit in the back, slid in the front, checked himself (rather than the road) in the mirror, and drove off. I waited fifteen seconds then did the same.
I played coy. Well, you have to be a little cautious when yours are the only two cars on the road. At Highbury Corner the pace quickened and others joined the dance. I let him keep one car ahead until he turned left halfway down Holloway Road. He was, as far as I could tell, heading straight for the Caledonian Road pool and gym, or the Cally as it’s known locally. I couldn’t decide whether I was pleased or disappointed.
But we never got to the Cally. Instead, he took a left down Camden Road and then did a square dance of oneways until we landed up in a tree-lined street at the back of Kentish Town. He stopped so quickly halfway down that I had no option but to sail right past him and turn the corner. By the time I had done the circuit he was nowhere to be seen. He could have gone into any one of a dozen houses. I parked about fifty yards back in the direction he wouldn’t be traveling and waited. How long would it take? How long’s a piece of string? Sorry, Colin. Didn’t mean it personally.
In the car I listened to “Today.” The same stories were coming around again when he emerged, nearly an hour later, up some stairs from the basement flat across the road. He walked smartly to his car. But then he was smart now, all dressed and ready for work, the tracksuit presumably in the bag by his side. Well, if you’re going to
take your clothes off, why not change them at the same time? Ready for the office. A new man. Interesting. I’ve always suspected that really they are just the same as the old ones underneath.
I watched as his car drove past me. I had to resist the urge to hit the horn. A little blast up the backside. So Kate had been right. Colin was on the razzle. A man with a mistress. Oh my, oh my, oh my. Who would have believed it? It was the kind of thing Pete Pantin probably had a song about. Remind me not to buy the album. Question was, what next? I don’t exactly remember making the decision to get out of the car and cross the street. But once I was there, I was pleased I had. No. 34. My lucky number from last night. I went down the stairs and rang the doorbell loudly. It took a while, but at last she opened it.
She wasn’t exactly Julia Roberts—probably in her late thirties, early forties, dark hair in no particular style, with a slash of lipstick across the mouth and a smattering of mascara. She was already dressed in trousers and a sweater. Nothing special. I have to say she didn’t look much like a woman for whom the earth had just moved. But then that’s Colin for you.
“Yes?” She was, however, definitely edgy.
“Good morning. I’m looking for a Miss Peters, Gillian Peters?”
“There’s no one here of that name.”
“I see. Is this thirty-four Stratton Gardens?”
“No, it’s Fairwood.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I wonder—”
But I didn’t get any further. Behind me I heard footsteps on the stairs and I turned to see a man of around fifty carrying a briefcase and an umbrella. When he spotted me, he went decidedly pale and hesitated. Bloody hell.
“Excuse me,” she said to me sharply.
“What? Oh yes, of course. Sorry to have disturbed you.”
