Fatal Error

by Michael Ridpath

  He kissed Mel and Ingrid on both cheeks. Neither of them had changed very much since school. Mel wore significantly less make-up, and the blonde streak in her dark hair had disappeared. But she still had the pouting softness that I was sure had first attracted Guy. Ingrid looked relaxed and tanned, as though she had just come back from a holiday. She gave us both a warm wide smile.

  Mel recovered. ‘Have you been groping every woman in the room, or am I specially privileged?’

  ‘Only you, Mel. Although I could include Ingrid if she asked nicely.’

  ‘Little chance of that,’ said Ingrid.

  Within a minute, we were all four talking like old friends; old friends who hadn’t seen each other for a couple of months, perhaps, but who had no trouble catching up. Guy, abetted by his pet waitress, kept everyone topped up and knocked back huge quantities of wine himself. He seemed to be able to take it well enough: practice, I assumed. Meanwhile I was getting pleasantly drunk.

  Time passed and suddenly we were some of the last people left in the room. Guy looked at his watch. ‘Anyone want some dinner?’ he asked. ‘I know a good place near here.’

  Mel glanced at Ingrid, who nodded her agreement, and soon we were out on the street and heading towards Bays-water. Guy led us into a Greek restaurant, ordered some retsina, and we were away. The group seemed to split into two, with Guy concentrating on Mel, who was quite drunk by now and giggling ecstatically at everything he was saying.

  ‘You’re not really working undercover for the CIA, are you?’ asked Ingrid.

  I shook my head. ‘No, it’s much worse than that.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Look, I’ll tell you, but you have to promise not to leave the table immediately.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘I’m training to be a chartered accountant.’

  ‘Oh, my God,’ said Ingrid. ‘Are you sure I can’t leave?’

  ‘You promised.’

  ‘I’ve heard about people like you, but I didn’t know they really existed.’

  ‘We do. But we’re not let out much, so we’re not a threat to society.’

  ‘It can’t be that bad.’

  ‘Oh, it can,’ I said, thinking of my fun-filled afternoon in Nostro Reconciliations.

  ‘Mel’s doing her articles to be a solicitor. That must be almost as dull.’

  We looked over at Mel, who had just exploded in a shriek of laughter, eyes shining and hair all over the place.

  ‘I’m sure she’ll make a perfect lawyer. Sober, serious, reliable.’

  ‘We’re all grown-ups now,’ Ingrid said.

  ‘So what do you do when you’re not editing Vogue?’

  ‘Actually I’m a sub-editor on Patio World. It’s a new title. You may not have heard of it.’

  ‘Not yet. But I’ll be sure to subscribe.’

  ‘Well hurry, because I think they’re going to close it down soon. It’s only been going six months, but it’s been a bit of a disaster.’

  ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘Don’t worry. They won’t blame me. They’ll find something else for me to do.’

  ‘I’m surprised you’re still in England. I’d have imagined you somewhere far more exotic.’

  ‘But London is exotic. The sky with all those fascinating tinges of grey. The people with their low-key warmth and friendliness. Very low key. And I find those dark wet winters so romantic.’

  ‘A real aficionado.’

  ‘Actually, it’s nice just to be in one place for once. My mother’s moved to New York with a new man and I’m so grateful I don’t have to follow her around the world any more. There is something pleasantly stable about London. And it’s a good place for my career.’

  ‘No better place for patios.’

  ‘When I’m running my own publishing empire, I’ll know where I can find someone to add up cab fares.’

  ‘I’d be more than happy to help,’ I said. ‘Just don’t forget to keep the receipts.’

  ‘I’ll start a special collection for you today.’

  I poured us both another glass of wine. ‘It’s nice to see you again,’ I said. ‘You were kind to me in France. And I don’t know what I’d have done without that two hundred francs you lent me.’

  ‘I was so pleased to get out of there,’ said Ingrid with a shudder. ‘That was one of the more unpleasant experiences of my life.’

  We were both silent, watching Guy and Mel.

  Guy noticed us and seemed to sober up. ‘What are you two thinking about?’

  Ingrid didn’t answer. ‘Nothing,’ I said.

  Guy leaned forward. ‘It was France, wasn’t it?’

  I nodded. Mel was suddenly still.

  Guy poured out the dregs from the second bottle of retsina. ‘Well, let me tell you something. That was five years ago, when we were all still kids. I’ve forgotten about France. Totally and completely. And I hope you all will too. Is that a deal?’

  ‘Deal,’ I said, raising my glass. Ingrid and Mel raised theirs too, and we all drank to obliterated memories.

  I was seriously drunk by the time we spilled out of the restaurant. Ingrid took the first taxi and I took the next, leaving Guy with his arm around Mel waiting for two more.

  Who was I kidding? I didn’t know whose flat they were going to, but I could tell they were going there together.

  I saw quite a lot of Guy after that evening. He seemed happy to count me as a friend, and he certainly made my life more interesting. It turned out he really was an actor, of the struggling kind. After three years at university, where he had only just escaped being thrown out, he had somehow managed to get into a reputable drama school, where he said he had done quite well. Since then, things had been difficult. He had had a few bit parts in repertory theatres and a small number of tiny roles in TV. He had been an extra in Morty’s Fall. He had an agent, who ignored him. He attributed his lack of success to the oversupply of young actors and an invisible network of contacts and friends of contacts that excluded him. That may have been partially true. A greater reason, I suspected, was that he just didn’t try hard enough. He went to the gym and watched Countdown on the telly when he should have been writing letters and knocking on doors. Young actors are supposed to be hungry. Guy was thirsty. And slaked his thirst every evening and many lunchtimes.

  I was happy to join him in this. It made the afternoons much easier to get through if I knew I was going to meet Guy for a pint or five after work. Of course, it made the mornings quite painful and it played havoc with studying for my professional exams, but at least it shook things up a bit. Guy had a small flat off Gloucester Road and we frequented several pubs and bars in that area. We were occasionally joined by other friends of his, including Torsten Schollenberger when he was visiting London.

  What did we talk about? I have no idea. Probably meaningless drivel. For our different reasons we needed to find friendship and escape the tedium of the daylight hours. Often, as the evening progressed, Guy would begin to chase women. He was usually successful at this. He was good-looking, of course, but he also seemed able to transmit an aura of danger and excitement that hooked them. I tried, unsuccessfully, to work out what kind of women went for him. Then I realized that almost any woman would, provided she was in the right kind of mood. The curious, those looking for excitement or searching for a quick escape were drawn to him. Guy offered sex, fun, danger and absolutely no chance of commitment. He provided an opportunity for good girls to be bad for a night.

  Many of them took it.

  Mel was different. He treated her like a backstop, someone to go to when he felt like sex and the evening had failed to provide him with any. He rarely seemed to make any arrangements to meet her, but often at ten or eleven o’clock he would slip off to her flat in Earls Court. From what I could tell, she was always there waiting for him.

  Just occasionally she would come out with us. She was always lively and amusing and often ignored by Guy. He was never rude to her, but he was often indifferent, which was wor
se. I could see what was going on: Mel was in love with Guy and Guy was using her. Mel was too scared of losing him to complain and so she put up with him. If I had thought about this, I would have realized that this showed a deep self-centredness in Guy’s character. So I didn’t think about it.

  Guy took me flying with him. His father had bought him his own plane, an expensive Cessna 182 with the registration GOGJ, which he kept at Elstree aerodrome, just to the north of London. We went for lunch to Le Touquet and Deauville in France and to a pretty grass airfield on a hill opposite Shaftesbury in Dorset. Guy was a skilful flyer, and enjoyed skimming along at fifty feet above the waves, or a few hundred feet above the English countryside.

  Inspired by Guy, I decided to learn to fly myself. I trained in an AA-5, an old banger compared to Guy’s BMW. I was taught that it was safer not to fly much below two thousand feet, that it was important to check the aircraft thoroughly before every flight and that drinking any alcohol before flying was strictly banned. I wasn’t at all surprised that somehow different rules applied to me than to Guy but, as I learned more, I became increasingly nervous sitting next to him in an aeroplane.

  On the surface, Guy seemed to be leading a great life. And I was very happy to deal with him on the surface. But it is hard being a struggling actor, even a struggling actor with a wealthy father.

  One evening I left work on the dot of five to meet him at a pub near Leicester Square. He had an audition near by, and he had suggested a drink afterwards. He was already there when I arrived, staring at his bottle of Beck’s.

  ‘I take it you didn’t get the part?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ he said. ‘They promised they’d call. They only call you if you get the part, you know. So I probably won’t hear anything.’

  ‘Cheer up, you might get it.’

  ‘It’s just a crappy part in a dumb commercial. That’s not it, Davo. It’s just so humiliating.’

  ‘You’ve got to start somewhere.’

  ‘I know. But it’s not what I expected. I loved drama school. I mean really loved it. Standing in the middle of the stage, being someone else, taking the audience along with the fiction that I was creating, manipulating their emotions. It was great. A real power kick. And I was good at it too. Chekhov, Ibsen, Steinbeck, even bloody Shakespeare, I could do them really well. At the end of the year we had a graduation performance and I was one of only four people to get a call from an agent asking me to go on her books.’

  ‘Sounds promising.’

  ‘And now what happens? I go along to meet Diane from Casting, who takes a Polaroid of me, gives me a few lines of truly horrible dialogue to speak at a camera and then it’s “goodbye, we’ll call you.” ’

  ‘One day they will.’

  ‘Yeah, but most days they won’t. And to be rejected by Diane from Casting makes you feel like the tiniest speck of shit. I mean, it’s me they’re rejecting, isn’t it? What don’t they like about me? My voice? My face? Maybe I can’t act after all. Maybe this whole thing is one huge mistake.’

  ‘Come on, Guy. You’ll make it. You always do.’

  ‘Yeah, precisely. I’ve always been a success. I did well at school, didn’t I? Tennis, soccer, head of house. And I thought I’d do well at acting. I thought I’d do something that even my father would notice. But at this rate I’ll never get the chance. Diane from Casting will see to that.’

  ‘You need another drink, quick,’ I said. I went to the bar and bought him one. As usual, the alcohol did its work. Half an hour later we were chatting up two Italian girls. Guy got the pretty one and I passed on the ugly one. But it turned into a good evening.

  I was in a newsagent’s looking for a copy of Private Eye when I caught sight of the cover of Patio World. I bought it, leafed through the pages with a total lack of interest and spotted a phone number printed inside the front cover. As soon as I was back at my desk I dialled the number, got through to Ingrid and suggested a film. We went to Dances with Wolves and afterwards to a Thai restaurant in Soho for dinner.

  The evening didn’t seem like a ‘date’ but rather like two old friends meeting up after a long absence. Which was nice, especially since in reality we hardly knew each other. I liked Ingrid. She was refreshingly straightforward, but also perceptive. She seemed to understand what made me tick without me explaining it to her. She was a good listener, tempting me to tell her more about myself than I intended. Not that I had anything shocking to tell, rather the opposite. But that, too, she seemed to understand.

  Our conversation turned to Guy. ‘Have you seen him since that Broadhill do?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah. I see him quite a lot, actually. It’s fun.’

  ‘He sees Mel as well, doesn’t he?’

  ‘From time to time.’

  ‘Oh. That doesn’t sound good.’

  ‘It probably isn’t for Mel. It’s fine for Guy.’

  ‘Selfish pig.’ Her comment surprised me. Ingrid noticed. ‘Well, he is, isn’t he?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ I conceded.

  ‘I mean, Mel is totally gone over him. Always has been.’

  ‘Even after what Tony did to her in France?’

  ‘Yeah. Especially after that. You know how much she regretted it. I think since then she’s been desperate to show Guy that she made a mistake.’

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t know what they all see in him.’

  ‘Oh, I think I do,’ said Ingrid with a twinkle in her pale-blue eyes.

  ‘Not you as well?’

  ‘Don’t get me wrong. The last thing in the world I would want is to be his girlfriend. I assure you I don’t envy Mel. But one can’t help wondering …’

  ‘I’ll tell him.’

  ‘Don’t you dare!’

  I paused to chase a piece of curried fish around my bowl with my chopsticks. Not great technique, but I was hungry. I noticed Ingrid whipping the food into her mouth like a pro.

  ‘How do you do that?’ I asked. ‘It’s unnatural.’

  ‘I learned as a child. When I was little and we lived in São Paulo, we used to go to Japanese restaurants a lot. Did you know there’s a massive Japanese community there? And then we lived in Hong Kong for a bit, so I’ve had plenty of practice.’

  ‘Well I’m afraid I haven’t,’ I said, finally spearing the fish.

  ‘Mel’s had a rough time,’ Ingrid said. ‘She doesn’t need Guy making her life any more miserable.’

  ‘I’m sure she doesn’t.’

  ‘She used to talk to me a lot about her family when we were at school. It sounded like her parents hated each other and used her as a weapon. Especially her father.’

  ‘Didn’t he run away with a secretary?’

  ‘That’s right. I think Mel has been pretty uptight about sex ever since.’

  ‘Tony Jourdan can’t have helped.’

  ‘No. Yuk.’ Ingrid shuddered. ‘I visited her a couple of times when she was at university in Manchester. For someone who used to look like such a good-time girl at school I think she led a pretty celibate life at university. And afterwards probably.’

  ‘Until Guy.’

  ‘Until Guy.’ She helped herself to some more rice. ‘What about you?’ she asked.

  ‘What about me? Are you asking me about my sex life?’

  ‘Is it a secret? Like the accountancy? Surely it’s not as embarrassing as that?’

  ‘Not quite,’ I sighed. ‘It hasn’t been as successful as I would have liked, but it’s not a total disaster. No one really serious, though. And you?’

  ‘Hey, I’m Brazilian. But actually I only ever seem to sleep with the wrong men. That’s something I’ve decided I’m going to change.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. Ingrid went very slightly red. I noticed, but pretended not to. ‘This green curry stuff looks horrible but it’s really tasty. You should try some.’

  We went out again, a week later. It was another good evening, but marred for me by some disappointing news. Ingrid’s fears over the future of Patio World proved w
ell founded. It was closing, slipping away from the specialist magazine shelves, leaving only a tiny band of readers with unfinished patios to mourn it. But her firm wanted her to go to Paris for a few weeks to work on a couple of titles that were proving successful there and might translate well to England. Ingrid was excited. It was a good career move, she spoke French and she loved Paris. I made encouraging noises, but I didn’t mean them.

  I found myself looking forward to her return.

  19

  I saw Owen only once that summer. I hadn’t known he was coming; one evening I went to meet Guy in one of our usual watering holes and there he was.

  Guy bought the beer and chatted away as though Owen wasn’t there. But it was hard to ignore his presence. He had filled out. He was now about twenty and he had transformed from overgrown kid to muscular adult. He hardly drank his lager, despite Guy’s attempts to ply him with more. I tried conversation.

  ‘What are you up to these days, Owen?’

  ‘UCLA. Studying computer science.’

  ‘Do you like it?’

  ‘College sucks. The course is OK.’

  ‘I know what Californian colleges are like,’ I said. ‘I’ve seen the films. Beaches, babes, parties.’

  Owen peered at me suspiciously. It was true I was mocking him, but in what was supposed to be a good-humoured, English kind of way. He didn’t get it.

  ‘I’m not into that kind of stuff.’

  ‘Er, no. I suppose not.’ I drank my beer. ‘How long are you here for?’ I asked, hoping the answer was not long.

  ‘Four days. I’ve just been to see my father in France.’

  ‘How is he?’ I asked politely.

  But Owen had had enough of my small talk. He ignored my question and spoke directly to his brother. ‘Abdulatif’s dead.’

  That got Guy’s attention. And mine. He glanced rapidly at me and then spoke. ‘Abdulatif?’

  ‘Yeah. Abdulatif. The gardener. He’s dead.’

  ‘Oh. They found him, then?’

  ‘They found him all right. In, like, a trash can in Marseilles. It took them a week to figure out who he was. Matched his fingerprints.’

  ‘Do they know who killed him?’ Guy asked.