MONEY TREE

by Gordon, Ferris,

  He was a man who’d let his talents atrophy but his performance the past few days suggested he was retrievable. The drinking had worried her at first, but it didn’t seem as though he did it to excess. And wasn’t it time she let go of the past? She couldn’t go on seeing every bloke who liked a glass now and then as a potential drunk and woman beater.

  Erin began the little climb, her heart racing in excess of the gentle exertion. She got to the top and peered round. She felt a jolt. He was sitting facing away from her on the parapet. His big dark bulk stood out clear against the sky. She padded softly towards him then began to worry in case she surprised him and he fell off.

  Then she caught the smell. At first she refused to identify it. It was some sort of spice mix, or it was coming from somewhere else. Surely? Then it became unmistakeable, overpowering. By his side on the ledge was an empty bottle. There, by his pack, was a full one. She froze. Past terrors rose and mixed with these new images, and engulfed her. Her heart burst with disappointment. She wasn’t going into that again. She hugged her sleeping bag to her chest and said sod, sod, sod under her breath. She turned and began to creep away, towards the stairs, tears blinding her.

  ‘Erin? Where are you going?’

  ‘Never mind. Just never mind.’

  ‘Wait. I was thinking - about you - about us.’

  She spun round, her pain turned to anger.

  ‘So you were thinking about ‘us’ were you? But you couldn’t think about us sober, could you?’

  ‘What are you talking about? That’s not how it was. But what if I took a drink? What the hell’s wrong with that?!’

  He swivelled fully round on the parapet and faced her now. She came back across the roof towards him, still clutching her sleeping-bag to her chest. Her childhood accent broke surface.

  ‘Not a thing – in moderation! But from the moment I met you it’s being going doon your neck like you were being hanged in the morning.’

  There was something particularly chastising about a Scottish accent to an American ear. Echoes of Presbyterian probity from high-minded preachers, marshalling their flocks as they pushed back the frontiers of the new world.

  ‘Trying to save me again, huh? Trying to run my life for me?’

  ‘Well, look at you! One bottle finished, and another waiting.’

  She dropped her bag and reached down and picked up his full one.

  ‘You don’t know how wrong you are, lady. But then I guess you’d never admit you were wrong. Now put that down.’

  ‘I’ll put it down all right.’

  She yanked at the foil round the neck, and then pulled the cork with a pop. He saw what she was about to do and got to his feet, angered beyond words at her arrogance.

  ‘Give me that!’

  ‘This is for your own good! Don’t you see? Can’t you get along without this even for a day?’

  Her voice was breaking, somewhere between desperation and fear. They were crouched, facing each other, like wrestlers looking for a hold. Erin kept his rucksack and bedding between them.

  ‘Put the bottle down, you stupid broad!’

  ‘It’s going down.’

  She took two quick steps back to the ledge and upended the bottle. His cry of anger was too late to stop the whiskey glugging into the night. He got to her and grabbed her body with his right arm while stretching out to wrench the bottle from her hand. He won it, but it was Pyrrhic. The bottle was empty except for a last inch. He stood back from her, inspected the bottle, then carefully emptied the rest over the side. They stood facing each other, glaring, chests heaving with the tussle.

  ‘You stupid, stupid, interfering…’

  ‘Broad. I ken.’

  She’d swung from reckless anger to fear. He didn’t seem drunk, just thoroughly pissed off. He walked away from her as though he might throw her off if he stood any closer. He took up his seat again on the ledge by his bed.

  ‘Why, Erin? Why? What’s going on here? Why did you come up here? Why that?’ He pointed at her sleeping bag.

  ‘I … I just wanted to talk. Thought I’d be cold. I didn’t like how we left it last night.’

  ‘Then you go and do something like that.’

  ‘You don’t understand. I didn’t want to talk to you when you were fu’ - when you’d been drinking.’

  ‘What makes you think I’d been drinking?’

  ‘Well of course you were. The place is littered with bottles. It smells like a distillery. What else…’ She began to run out of words.

  He got up and came towards her so that he was again within touching distance. She inched back, cowering, scared he would hit her. Not again. Ted saw the fear in her eyes and was wounded by it, grieved by it. He bent a little at the knees to put him level with her. He smiled as if at a panicked child and whispered.

  ‘I’m not going to hurt you. See.’

  He lifted his big hands. She flinched but held her ground. He extended them and put them gently on her shoulders. He took one last step and kissed her lightly on her lips. So lightly she felt denied.

  ‘Taste anything?’

  ‘No. I mean… You mean…’

  ‘I haven’t had a drop. I poured away the first bottle. I was planning the same with the one you took. We’ve got work to do.’

  ‘Oh, bugger.’

  Her face collapsed and her shoulders fell, her sandcastle wiped out by a wave. Ted took her hand and pulled her over to the corner of the palisade. He took one side of the angle and she took the other. Their knees touched.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said.

  She shook her head. ‘It’s such a bloody cliché.’

  ‘It’s the human condition.’

  She sat still for a while. He waited. She let her chest rise and fall, drawing in the night smells, sucking at the stars. Then it trickled out of her.

  ‘My father was a teacher. We had a nice life, a nice wee house, I went to a nice school in Pollokshaws. South West of Glasgow. But Dad was never happy. Just seemed bitter about everything. I think – I’m sure - there was someone else. He should have left us. Instead, he started to drink. See what I mean? Total cliché.’

  ‘Not to you. It was unique to you.’

  She held his eyes for a long second then she told him of the bad years, of the shouting and the violence and the growing debts. The dread each morning as another brown envelope landed on the mat. Her mother bearing the brunt, sheltering her daughter.

  ‘She just took it all, you know, like it was her cross to bear. Sometimes they’d make up, and everything seemed all right for a while, then Dad went off the rails again. He lost his job, the bailiffs moved in and took everything we had. I was sleeping on the floor for a bit. Until we lost the house.’

  Erin was silent for long moment, reliving the final wrench. Ted leaned over and touched the back of her hand. She jerked it clear, but then brought it back and touched his briefly.

  ‘We applied to the council. All they could offer us was Drumchapel. A tiny wee flat on the 18th floor in the middle of nowhere. Away from everyone we knew. All ma pals. Living on benefits until Dad died of liver disease and we were free. Or rather I was freed. Ma Mum never got over it. Never shook off his grip.’

  The tears started. They ran down her face and dripped at her nose and made her sniff. He dug in his pocket and passed her a tissue. He listened quietly, and at some point took her hand again. She squeezed it.

  ‘I know it’s stupid, an over-reaction, and just because you have a drink doesn’t bring out the latent woman beater in all men.’

  She grimaced and borrowed her hand back to wipe both cheeks with her knuckles, like a child. She swallowed and choked through her tears.

  ‘And normally I don’t care what a man does to his body. Do you see?’

  ‘Yeah, I see. You ok?’

  ‘I’m fine, now. Really. Fine. I’m sorry about your bottle, and I’m sorry. . .’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Look, thanks for listenin
g. I’m going to go now. Best get some sleep.’

  She stood up with some resolution. He rose beside her. They dropped hands, all at once aware of what they were doing.

  ‘You don’t have to go, you know.’

  ‘It’s best. Till all this is over, and I know where ma head is.’

  He nodded. She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek.

  ‘Thanks, Ted Saddler. You’re a good man. Goodnight.’

  FORTY EIGHT

  They were quiet with each other in the morning, the quiet of people who’d revealed too much, and not enough. Neither knew how to ask what came next. Erin felt foolish and chastened. Ted was in turmoil. Had they overshot, taken the friendship fork rather than the lover? Was there a way back? He couldn’t read her silence or the sad smile.

  There was also the unspoken fear of what lay ahead. The village had taken on a friendlier, more attractive hue, and they were reluctant to leave its simple sanctuary. From the roof of Ted’s hut they could see the whole length of the valley. Could spot any unusual dust cloud and have 30 minutes to get to the hills. But they’d made their commitments. Meera had phoned Bhopal railway station and had managed to wait-list them on the early morning train to Delhi.

  She dropped them at the station, dazed from their early start and the bucking ride. The absence of a guaranteed return ticket forced Ted to join a scrum at the opaque windows of the booking office. No patient queuing here. No legacy of the Raj. Every man for himself. Brown arms snaked past his reticent white ones, beating him to the attention of the man with the power over life, death or getting back to Delhi’s sanctuary that evening. Abandoning his civilized restraints Ted used his bulk and barged to the front, blocking out all other would-be travellers.

  Peering through the smeared glass, Ted could now see the source of the print-outs taped to the side of the carriages. Ancient dot-matrix printers dashed out their decisions. Clerks crouched in front of battered black and white screens with green columns chugging up and down, telling a man’s destiny. Telling him his wait was over, his wait-list confirmed - possibly - for how could he tell for certain what the Sanskrit on the proffered ticket meant?

  But it worked. They embraced Meera and said their goodbyes to her with new fondness. They settled in for the long cold ride, sitting side by side, but alone with their tangled thoughts. Sometimes he dared a touch on her arm to see how she was. It provoked a strained smile and a ‘fine’. He remembered Ramesh’s gift and tried to immerse himself in Passage to India to see if he recognised the world. What was Ramesh’s point? That Ted was misreading India – and therefore Ramesh himself – just like all white Westerners? Was Ramesh the vilified Dr Aziz? Then who was Ted?

  Mostly though, Ted fidgeted, looking for hit men. Every time a passenger came through the connecting door of the rocking train his eyes ran down the man’s body to check for a knife or a gun. He swivelled if someone was coming from behind and he searched faces for signs of deadly intent.

  He didn’t tell Erin. She was already badly rattled and didn’t need any more anxiety piled on her. As if a death threat from her boss wasn’t enough. Ted tried to keep his mind off the possibility of a knife in his back or a bullet in the head by running over his plan, such as it was, for countering the bad guys. He wished now that they’d made the phone call to Warwick Stanstead the night before, but somehow it had seemed too big an intrusion from that other world.

  They stumbled into the hotel lobby, weary to the bone, and desperate to collapse on a soft bed. A carpeted floor would do. But the ever efficient Meera Banerjee had phoned ahead and had adjoining rooms waiting for them. It felt like coming home. It was 10 pm and all Erin wanted to do after removing the layers of grime from four days travel, two nights in a village hut, and two thousand miles of Indian railways, was sleep, but Ted urged her on.

  ‘We have to make that call. Meet me in my room as soon as you’ve dropped everything.’

  Erin squared up to him. She didn’t mind him taking charge, sometimes. But there were limits.

  ‘I am carrying the Gobi Desert in my hair. I absolutely, must have, will have, at any price, a shower first. Then I’ll come by.’

  Twenty minutes later she was sitting on the couch in Ted’s room, swaddled in a white robe, her face scrubbed and glowing, her hair still damp

  ‘Going native?’ had been Ted’s smiling comment at the towel turban. ‘I’ve ordered coffee and a sandwich. Stiffen the sinews. Shall we?’

  He picked up the hotel phone, ready to dial New York. She leaned over and gently but firmly took it from him. She clutched it to her chest.

  ‘Wait. We need a moment. The other night. I told you stuff that I haven’t told anyone.’

  ‘It’s fine, Erin. I understand. No wonder you were –’

  ‘Po-faced? I was. Am. But, look, can you take some more?’

  Her jaw muscles were working overtime. He looked her over.

  ‘Sure. If it would help.’

  He sat down next to her on the couch. She pulled herself back, tucking her legs under her. She searched his face, wondering how he would react.

  ‘Before we phone Warwick, there’s something you should know about him. It doesn’t change where I am on all this. Where we are. What we’re doing. OK? Trust me?’

  She was pleading.

  ‘Okaaay. Shoot.’

  ‘Remember that night in Carnegie’s? Our blind date?’

  ‘A million years back? Sure.’

  ‘I told you about the exec meeting a year ago? At the end Warwick called me into his office. . .

  Erin Wishart waited a respectful minute or two before entering her boss’s chamber via the connecting corridor from the conference room. The door to his washroom was ajar and she could see his shadow moving. Oh, God, what’s he up to? Rather than take a seat and wait for who knew what to emerge – Jekyll or Hyde? - Erin strolled over to the floor-to-ceiling window that opened onto the balcony hanging high over the narrow wynds of downtown Manhattan. The morning sun flooded the outside space. Flower tubs and shrubs marked the periphery of the patch of real lawn, mowed and manicured like a pool table. She stood at the open door and sucked in the warm air. In the background – so faint that it might have been from another room – the usual Chopin played.

  The door clicked behind her and she turned. Warwick was standing watching her, his face flushed, eyes bright. His hand went up to his nose and wiped it, once, twice. He sniffed. At a sign from him she walked back to the centre of the room and took one of the four plush armchairs. They were clustered round a low coffee table of Hazelwood, its whorls and grains glowing with the patina of age and gentle hand polishing. She sank into the deep cool leather and crossed her legs. Warwick took up her vacated position at the open balcony door. The light now came over his shoulder, shrouding his pale eyes in the peaks and troughs of his angular face.

  From his vantage point, he studied her. She looked smaller and more vulnerable against the slab of brown leather. But he knew there was nothing vulnerable about Miss Erin Wishart. He wanted to hear her talk. There was always something about those dependable Celtic cadences that he ached to disrupt. He began pacing. He prowled round the room until he was standing behind her. Her shoulders tensed. He leaned over and said quietly,

  ‘So, Erin, you think we’re sending out the wrong message?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘This isn’t about PR, Warwick. We’ve spent the last 10 years through four acquisitions, a merger, and a bailout building an image and offering a service that we can’t change overnight. Our culture is at odds with our customers.’

  ‘Be specific.’

  She was acutely conscious of his hands gripping the headrest. She kept gazing straight ahead, afraid of looking up. Afraid of what she’d read on his face. She fingered her blouse buttons, checking they were closed. She felt her cheeks warming, her stomach tightening. She cleared her throat.

  ‘We never recovered from the bad press we got over our 500% hike in bank charges for our least profit
able customers. It got rid of most of them and did wonders for our bottom line. But it left a picture in the public’s mind. We’re elitist and uncaring. Cold and hard.’

  The leather creaked again.

  ‘Cold and hard, Erin? You know I’m not cold, don’t you? Whereas. . .’

  She tensed, knowing what was coming. Her toes curled in her shoes. His hands slid down to her shoulders and began to massage them gently. His fingers shifted to her neck and fondled her bare ears. They found the hair clips. They clattered to the wood floor and her hair tumbled about her face. He leaned forward, lifted bunches in both hands and buried his head in them. He breathed deeply and massaged her scalp at the same time.

  His smell was rich in her nostrils, the familiar shower gel mixed with maleness. His smell. She uncrossed her legs and pushed her head back into the chair. Her fingers clawed into the chair arms. The sound of the piano seemed louder now. Maybe it was her senses sharpening. She recognised the tune from her lessons as a child a million years ago; Barcarolle in F. The intent was so crass and contrived. Yet. . .

  ‘. . . I am hard, Erin.’

  The blunt crudity broke the hold. She swung forward and up on to her feet, clutching at her hair and dragging it behind her ears. She staggered a fraction, dazed from the rapid rise. She was panting but found her voice.

  ‘I can’t do this any more, Warwick. We agreed this was crazy.’

  Anger twisted his face. The veins stood out on his forehead. Then he smiled and shrugged. She scuttled past him, wanting to smack the smug grin off his face. Wanting to pin him to the floor and make him beg. She shoved at the heavy door and was gone.

  FORTY NINE

  Ted stared at her as she drifted to a halt. Her face was tight and her neck scarlet. He took a long time finding his voice. When he did, it was low, and controlled. Barely.

  ‘It was never about the poor and democracy and all that bullshit. Was it? Your were dumped. By a cokehead!’