The Canal House

by Mark Lee

  I found one feature article in the Guardian where Richard mentioned that he had met Julia during a Cambridge symposium on refugee problems. Last year, they had been photographed together at a charity event. When Richard became more involved with humanitarian organizations even the tabloids began treating him with respect. It wasn’t Dashing Dicky anymore, but BANKING MOGUL, RICHARD SEATON AND DR. JULIA CADELL AT OXFAM DINNER.

  Daniel flew in on Thursday morning with my new tuxedo. I tried it on in my hotel room; then we got a taxi and went to Paddington Station. Our train rumbled slowly through the long, shadowy hall and then we were out and moving beneath a gray October sky. We passed council flats, gas works, parking lots and factories, little brick houses, each with a TV antenna attached to the chimney.

  A doctor in Rome had cut off Daniel’s cast and removed the stitches. His hair had grown longer and he superficially resembled the same person I had met at the Stampa Estera. But Daniel held his body differently and his tone of his voice had changed. There was a dreamy intelligence about him, a preoccupation with other thoughts that made him seem like an absentminded mathematician. Before the plane crash in Africa, Daniel would have had his ticket ready. He would have known exactly when the train departed from London and when it arrived in Kemble. Now he smiled and fumbled through his pockets when the conductor came up the aisle.

  After a short stop in Reading, we passed through a flat farmland with rolled-up cylinders of hay. I stared at the brown stubble on the fields and a red fuel can that would have been the center of a photograph. After we changed trains in Swindon the landscape became hilly and strips of forest appeared. Sheep grazed in the distance, little spots of white dotting the dark green grass.

  Kemble was a neat and orderly town with signs directing you to the Cotswold Hills. Billy Monroe was out in the train station parking lot, leaning against a Jaguar sedan. He wore new jogging shoes and a blue warm-up suit. In Africa he had carried a submachine gun, but there were laws against that in Britain. Billy looked relaxed and friendly, as if he was the real host of the party.

  “Good to see you two again.” He winked at Daniel. “They said you were dead, but I knew you weren’t. You’re too much of bastard, Daniel. Just like me.”

  “We should form a club, Billy. Get a special tattoo.”

  “Already got mine.”

  We got into the Jaguar and roared out of the parking lot. Billy swore at every shuffling pensioner who forced him to use the brakes. We left the town in about five minutes and began racing down narrow country roads lined with hedges. Billy switched on the car’s tape recorder and French techno-pop boomed out of the back speakers.

  “This is a bit more comfortable than Kosana,” Billy said. “Wasn’t that the fly-specked asshole of the world?”

  “What’s going on at the camp?” Daniel asked.

  “Most of the younger Karamojong ran off to steal cattle, but we’re not sharing that news with the contributors. A reporter from the Times flew to Africa with us on the second trip. He wrote a damn good article and the photographs were even better. There was a nice one of Mr. Seaton holding a sick child in his arms.”

  “Why did Julia leave?”

  “Because of the banquet on Saturday. We’re going to raise a great deal of money for Hand-to-Hand. Mr. Seaton hired two new doctors and they’re in charge of the camp. They finally sacked Steve Ramsey. I would have gotten rid of that wanker a long time ago.”

  We came over a rise in the road and saw a gray stone castle in the distance. It sat about halfway up a large hill. A pine forest grew on the slope behind the castle and two parts of it curved around both sides of the building like the flanking wings of a green army. The car bumped across a cattle grate and entered a farmland area divided by walls and more hedges. An apple orchard was on our right, the bare branches of the trees outlined against the sky. Across the road a flock of sheep grazed on the grass surrounding a solitary beech tree. A bearded old man carrying a shepherd’s crook saw the Jaguar and touched the brim of his hat.

  “Lonely job,” I said.

  Billy looked amused. “It’s not what you think.”

  “What do you mean?” Daniel asked.

  “Mr. Seaton invited you here as friends so everything you hear and see this weekend is off the record.”

  “Of course. We’re not working on a story.” Daniel glanced at me and smiled. “Just don’t ask Nicky to take any celebrity photographs.”

  “Nothing ends up in any kind of newspaper.”

  “You’ve made your point,” I said. “Daniel and I are on vacation.”

  “All right. I’ll accept that as a promise. And promises are very important to me.” Billy downshifted the car. “Now, to answer your question, the shepherd is an actor named Charlie Drayton. I hired him for the weekend. The landscape designer thought that sheep would look picturesque for the party guests so we rented a flock and trucked it in from Wales. Charlie worked in one of the Riverside Bank television ads. He doesn’t know one bloody thing about sheep.”

  “But he looks good. Nicky wanted to take his picture. Didn’t you, Nicky?”

  When I nodded, Billy looked pleased. “It’s all in the details. Minding the details is why Mr. Seaton is a successful man.”

  The car passed between two stone pillars and followed a tarmac driveway up the hill. The castle was really a collection of buildings—a square tower at one end, a round tower near the middle, and then a great hall with three floors of arched windows. Everything was connected to a gray stone manor house that had a steep slate roof. Four triangular pennants flew from the corners of the square tower and each one displayed the advertising logo of the Riverside Bank.

  “Who built this?” Daniel asked.

  “Henry the Eighth. At least that’s what we tell the American tourists when they show up with their cameras. Actually it was thrown up around 1860 by a crazy bugger named Robinson who loved reading Walter Scott. He pissed away a fortune building the place, then fell off one of the towers and broke his neck. The previous owners were going to turn it into a health spa, but Mr. Seaton bought the property and did a complete renovation.”

  We crossed a bridge over a dry moat, passed through the barbican, and entered the front courtyard. We got out of the car and Billy told us to leave our luggage in the trunk. As we followed him around the corner of the great hall, he pointed out the heating vents concealed by shrubbery and an ancient-looking pump house that contained the feeder lines for fiber-optical cables. “All modern. Everything modern,” he kept saying, as if we didn’t believe him.

  Crossing the back lawn, we heard the sharp whack of a tennis racket hitting a ball and approached a red clay court. Richard and Julia were playing tennis against another couple. Since Kosana, I had held images of Julia in my mind. I remembered her inoculating the refugee children and washing blood off her arms in the medical tent. It was jarring to see her in a completely different setting. She wore tennis shoes, sky blue tennis shorts, and a white sweater.

  A middle-aged butler stood next to a portable serving table crowded with bottles of water and fruit drinks. His head swung back and forth like a metronome with each volley of the ball.

  A young couple sat together on a wooden bench. The man was in his thirties with the rumpled appearance of an undergraduate. The blond woman beside him wore a let’s-go-tramping-across-the-moor skirt-and-sweater set. Engrossed in the tennis match, they both leaned forward with a perkiness that reminded me of college cheerleaders. Whenever someone on the court scored a point or made a good save, they shouted encouragement.

  Another guest in his late sixties stood a few feet away from the young couple. The man’s brown suit and sweater vest were shabby and stained. His thinning hair failed to conceal his bald spot. He looked like an unemployed hotel clerk who had accidentally been invited to the party.

  Julia saw us and waved. The ball flew back over the net and she continued playing. The other couple on the tennis court had more experience working as a team. They were in the
ir late fifties but in good shape, as bright-eyed and sleek as otters. The man had pale skin and reddish hair that looked like a wave about to break. His wife was small and strong, an aggressive player.

  The volley between the two couples became fairly intense until the small woman hit a backhand that bounced between Richard and Julia.

  “That’s enough. You’re too good for us,” Richard said.

  Still holding her tennis racket, Julia passed through the gate. “Hello, Nicky. Hello, Daniel. It’s wonderful to see you both again.” Julia and Daniel glanced at each other, then looked away. It was that same awkwardness I’d seen between them in the staff tent at Kosana.

  Richard joined us and shook my hand. “There you are. Glad you two made it. I promise, no Righteous Armies this weekend.”

  Wallace, the butler, served drinks while Richard introduced us to the other guests. The sleek couple was in the current government. George Riverton was the international development secretary, the politician who had supported Hand-to-Hand’s first effort in Uganda. His wife was named Jacqueline, but everyone called her Jax. She worked in the foreign office and I remembered seeing her on various television talk shows.

  The young couple was also involved in politics. Malcolm Barthorp was the MP for a West London suburb. His wife, Connie, raised their children and organized pocket gardens in poor neighborhoods. Both the Rivertons and the Barthorps laughed at Richard’s jokes and nodded when he spoke. They had obviously decided that Richard had some sort of political future and they were eager to become his supporters.

  The man in the shabby brown suit stayed away from the introductions. Suddenly, Richard swung around and gestured to him. “And this is our good friend, Digran Petrosyan.”

  I had heard Digran’s name before, but I couldn’t recall why. I glanced at Daniel—Help me out here—then Connie stepped forward and grinned. “Isn’t it exciting to have Mr. Petrosyan here? Richard got him out of prison six days ago.”

  “Actually, Jax and the foreign office had quite a lot to do with it,” Richard said. “I just provided some moral support.”

  “And your jet,” Malcolm said. “Don’t forget the corporate jet. You got him out of Armenia before they changed their minds.”

  Political prisoner, I thought. Older man. And then I remembered. Digran Petrosyan was the world-famous poet and candidate for the Nobel Prize. When he called for a peace agreement between his country and Azerbaijan, the Armenian government sent him to prison. During the last few years, he had been a poster boy for the Amnesty International crowd.

  The poet nodded to Richard and Jax. “I thank you,” he said with a whispery voice. “I thank everyone for their assistance.”

  Everyone smiled politely. I felt sorry for the guy. A week ago he was sitting in a cell staring at a crack in the wall and now he was at Westgate Castle with Richard’s butler hovering behind him. When deep-sea divers come up too fast, they get the bends.

  We finished our drinks and crossed the lawn to the manor house. Julia turned to Daniel as we walked together. “Richard said you were in Italy.”

  “Yes. I own a small farm there.”

  “And you actually grow things?”

  “Olives. Vegetables. Nicky helped me dig up three sacks of onions.”

  Richard left the Barthorps and caught up with us. “The party on Saturday is a fund-raiser for Hand-to-Hand, but up until then we can have some fun. Wallace will show you to your rooms. Drinks at seven. Dinner around eight-thirty. You’re welcome to come pheasant shooting with us tomorrow morning.”

  “Think I’ll sleep in late,” said Daniel.

  “I used to hunt when I was younger,” I said. “We’d drive out to my uncle’s ranch.”

  “You’ll find this a bit more organized.” Richard turned to the butler. “Wallace, find a jacket and boots for Mr. Bettencourt and tell Quinn we’re adding another gun.”

  The butler led Daniel and me upstairs to our rooms in the west wing of the manor house. Recessed lights in the hallways illuminated a series of eighteenth-century paintings. A man holding the reins to a dappled horse. Two bare-knuckled prizefighters posing in a field.

  “Nice place,” I said.

  “The whole building was gutted like a fish,” said Wallace. He had a strong northern accent. “Pulled out the innards. Stuffed in something new.”

  My room was small, but it had a view of the castle’s herb garden. Richard’s elves had already brought my suitcase up from the Jaguar. The bathroom was decorated with framed prints and lots of Italian tile. The mattress on the bed was firm enough to bounce a coin yet the rest of the furniture was cracked and faded. I inspected a mirrored armoire, an easy chair, and oak shelves crammed with turn-of-the-century agricultural books. A pewter mug filled with white roses was on the side table along with photographs of people from the 1940s and 1950s.

  After using the bathroom, I noticed a full-color photograph on the wall. It was a picture of the room. Same bed. Same book shelves. No, I thought. That’s not it. There was only one window in my room, but a pair of windows in the photograph. A little brass label at the bottom of the frame read THE PRIORY. KILKENNY, IRELAND.

  Then I realized: Richard, or someone working for him, had bought up the entire contents of a room in Ireland and installed it, intact, at Westgate Castle. It was as if a natural history museum had set up a reconstructed hut from the Amazon basin. Lots of people collect antiques, but having the photograph in the room was something new. Did Richard think his guests would be interested? Or was it simply a demonstration of his wealth and power, the fact that he could grab a little fragment of the world and make it appear anywhere he wished? Staring at the photograph, I realized that Daniel, the Armenian poet, and I had been collected in exactly the same manner.

  AROUND SEVEN O’CLOCK I walked down the hallway to see Daniel. A framed photograph of his room hung on the wall and I wondered if his furniture had also come from the house in Kilkenny. Daniel was wearing one of his Italian suits and an ivory-colored shirt with an open collar. He looked like he was going to sit outside at a café and order a glass of wine.

  “Want to get a drink downstairs?”

  “Sure. In a few minutes.” Daniel stepped into the bathroom and combed his wet hair. He moved quickly as if our new surroundings had awakened him from a long sleep. “This is a very strange place, Nicky. It’s like a stage set with real people bumping into the scenery. I can’t see Julia living here.”

  “Well, she does. At least for this weekend. Maybe her room is a recreation of a medical tent in northern Uganda.”

  “You think she’s happy here?”

  “All this is Richard. If you pick the man, you get the castle.”

  We went downstairs and found a maid lighting candles. She led us down a long hallway to a frosted glass door with rubber seals around the edges. The door made a faint whooshing sound when she pulled it open. Daniel and I passed through an anteroom warmed by an electric heater. We pushed open a second door and entered a conservatory with a twenty-foot ceiling.

  The glass-walled room was filled with potted trees and flowering plants. Overstuffed couches and chairs had been brought in from another part of the house. Digran Petrosyan, the Rivertons, and the Barthorps were already there, talking to each other like old friends. Billy Monroe stood in one corner behind a wooden serving cart filled with bottles of wine and liquor.

  We walked over to get a drink and he gave us a benevolent smile. Although Billy was making drinks for the guests, he didn’t act like Wallace or the other servants. This might have been Richard’s party, but Billy felt connected to what was going on.

  “How are your rooms?” he asked. “Everything satisfactory?”

  “Very nice,” I said.

  “You have any problems, anything you need, just talk to me. Whatever you do, don’t bother Mr. Seaton. He’s got a lot of things on his mind this weekend.”

  I ordered an Irish whiskey and Daniel asked for Campari and soda. After we got our drinks, I followed Danie
l over to a potted palm tree where Digran Petrosyan was talking to Connie Barthorp, the MP’s wife.

  “I just asked Digran if he was ever tortured in prison. He said—”

  “I wasn’t.” The poet looked like his teeth hurt.

  “But other people were. He could hear their screams.” Connie rattled the ice cubes in her glass. “Isn’t that horrible?”

  The glass door opened, and Richard and Julia entered the room. She wore a black dress and her hair was coiled up at the back of her neck. If I had brought along my camera, I would have raised it at that moment.

  Daniel ignored them and focused on Digran Petrosyan. “Do you regret being let out of prison?”

  The poet looked startled, as if Daniel had just read his mind. Connie Barthorp shook her head. “What a horrible thing to say! Mr. Petrosyan was in a dreadful situation. It took three international petitions and a personal appeal from the prime minister to get him released.”

  “If you don’t mind, Mrs. Barthorp, I can speak for myself.” Digran stood a little straighter. “You must understand that I would not have survived another year in prison. It was very cold and dirty and people were dying of typhoid. But, in another way, I do regret leaving the place. When I was alone in my cell, I was aware of everything around me. I could look at a spider and see the world.”

  “But aren’t you grateful that you’re in Britain among friends?” Connie asked. “At least, you said that earlier.”

  “Yes. Very grateful.”

  “Being released must have been an enormous surprise.”

  “Not really. When they moved me to the new cell, I was allowed to hear the warden’s radio. I listened to Mrs. Riverton’s interview on the BBC.”

  “You heard Jax? On the radio? Oh, you should definitely tell her that. She’ll be thrilled.”