Human Pages

by John Elliott

  He did not say anything, but he knew he would pick up the money. It had to be.

  ‘Now I no longer owe you.’

  ‘No. You don’t owe me anything. What will become of you in the world?’

  ‘I’m not your daughter. You don’t have the right to be concerned about me. I expect I’ll do well enough, to answer your question.’

  ‘I think so too.’

  ‘You did what you wanted. Nothing more.’

  ‘More or less,’ he agreed. ‘Don’t think badly of me.’

  ‘I won’t think of you, at all.’

  She began to dress. He lay back on the bed and closed his eyes. For the first time, he would be the one to stay here and hear her close the door. He would wait in this room. Then, when she had left the hotel, he would get up, dress and turn off the light. Downstairs he would hand in the key and return the inquiring stare of the pregnant concierge. Strangely, for the first time in a long time, ever since his off and on sojourns in Greenlea, he felt almost positively happy. Wilson Loumans was in town. Tonight he could go and talk with Wilson. The obscure ties that bind, he thought. The chance encounters that in spite of ourselves determine our lives.

  *

  Across the street, from his vantage point in the window of the Hunan Long March restaurant, Lucas Jones watched Sylvia come out of the hotel. Stifling his desire to rush out and accost her, he gloomily stayed where he was and waited for her companion to catch her up. Nobody else appeared. Sylvia, without a backward glance, was already out of sight.

  It was 3.57 p.m. At least three hours remained before their proposed evening meeting. Lucas finished his last acrid dumpling, as the menu translation described it, and called for the bill.

  The Old Russia, from his observation, catered neither for tourists nor for business people. It had no doorman, and items of luggage did not feature with those who entered and exited. In spite of the two courses he had consumed, there was an empty feeling in the pit of his stomach. Reluctantly, he accepted Antoine Viall would have weathered the situation better than he could. Antoine would simply have shrugged his shoulders and set off in pursuit of another woman or would have ignored her dalliance, a favourite Viall word, in order to bed her again. After all, Sylvia had given him no promises. She was completely free to do as she wished, and it was not a case of her being coerced. Indeed, during the brief time of his following them, she had seemed to take the lead in choosing the venue for their . . . He left the word unresolved, trying to blot out any pictures of the room or their actions. What to do? Say nothing and meet her as planned or challenge her and risk their hopefully future relationship? The image of the couple on the bed when the trembling hands of the deliverer laid out the guns for Walter’s and Emmet’s inspection floated above his uncleared bowl and chopsticks. He relived Emmet’s scornful look when he had spoken up and selected one for himself. But that was Antoine Viall who had intervened—Antoine Viall who had owned a gun in New York and who had visited places like the Bronx. The fact was, however, the gun was still in his flat. Walter was flying out tomorrow. He need never see Emmet again, and before he finally got rid of it, which he definitely intended to do, it might be put to some use. He smiled at the thought of what Emmet’s reaction would be if he found out that it was he, Lucas Jones, who could use a gun as a persuader, who could effectively warn someone off, make sure they disappeared. It would only be a little warning. Nothing more than a bargaining chip that would tilt the balance back in his favour and at the same time maybe dent Emmet’s complacent aura of superiority. Take care of what matters now, he thought. It still need not go further. When he comes out the important thing is I’ll be waiting.

  He pushed back his chair, rose from the table and left a tip. In his new-found certainty, he knew exactly what he was going to do. He was going to keep a close eye on Mr Guthrie, follow him home if possible and then, well, time would tell.

  *

  Emmet downed his whisky. The small brown jug of water Margie had placed on the table remained untouched beyond his glass.

  ‘You’re back to your usual I see,’ she said as she brought over a double and watched him swallow a gulp undiluted.

  ‘Water’s fine in its place, but it wastes good spirit.’ He set the tumbler down. He needed to take it steady. The days were long gone since booze was automatically free. The enervating heat in Cheb Alakhin’s hideaway hole and his fruitless conversation with Sinclair, who had denied all knowledge of Corinne’s mother and had stuck to his tale of being mostly based in Greenlea when his boss was in Veldar, plus chasing Jacky Millom all over town, had tired him.

  He had hit Jacky several times before he had handed him the automatic. The price he accepted was lower than what he would normally have demanded, but circumstances were different. The key thing was he had got rid of the gun and word to that effect would spread around. A safer, untraceable weapon was essential if he was going to carry out the final part of Walter’s commission.

  The phone on the corner of the bar counter rang. Margie let it ring while she finished serving a group of four customers, then she answered it. ‘Emmet, are you here?’ she called over with her hand clamped across the mouthpiece. He nodded.

  Walter spoke fast when he picked it up.

  ‘Slow down, brother! They haven’t called the final boarding for your flight just yet.’

  The irony of his use of brother seemed lost, however, because Walter continued to gabble in his ear.

  ‘My memory’s good. Don’t worry about that. There won’t be any trace now you’ve told me his name and where he lives.’ This is the get out stakes for both of us, Emmet thought. He cannot wait to scurry back. Only now he’s scared he won’t be able to finesse the shit if things go wrong, and this is probably my last chance to win the fat city prize.

  ‘I must have the key, Walter. No, I want you to listen, citizen. I need the key to the deposit locker otherwise it’s no show, and you and your Old Man and his nameless friends can fuck yourselves.’

  ‘You’re asking the impossible, Emmet. It’s not mine to give. It’s beyond my control. Of course, I want you to have it, you know that. I want you to have the money, but his death must be verified first. Trust me, it will be settled. There’s too much at stake to cut you out.’

  The line went dead.

  Emmet returned to his booth. There was no point in calling back. His call would not be answered. A visit he was certain, would only confirm hurriedly vacated premises. While Walter remained in Greenlea he had a chance of tracking him down, but it would take time and effort, and besides he believed Walter had told him the truth. The key was not in his possession. Someone else had it and knew the all-important location of the second half of his fee. Wait for further information, Walter had instructed, and wait was what he was going to do. It was something he was used to, even if now it was in the service of tourists.

  Three whiskies later, a motorcycle courier dressed in a helmet and black leathers came into the now crowded room. After speaking to Margie, he approached Emmet’s table. ‘Mr Briggs?’

  Emmet nodded.

  The courier handed over an envelope. Emmet scrawled his signature and prised it open. The photograph inside showed two men standing side by side looking at what appeared to be chalked figures on a pavement. An inked arrow pointed to the man on the left. Emmet grunted to himself. Make the face leaner, take away a few pounds round the waist, and there was the likeness of Agnes’s father, the man he had met off the train at Veldar.

  *

  ‘Why, it’s Rose.’

  The woman’s voice surmounted the already animated conversation of her two companions. They and the new arrival formed a protracted knot of greeting which obliged Agnes to say excuse me and thread her way past their embraces.

  She was lost: not disastrously so but enough to be uncertain about which direction to take. A plaque informed her that part of the Medical Faculty inhabited the building on her left. The Veterinarian Hall had to be somewhere close by in these grids of streets,
which seemed mainly occupied by university departments. She looked round for someone to ask, but there was nobody. The women she had passed were nowhere to be seen. If she had thought, she could have asked them.

  ‘Why, it’s Agnes.’ Who would say these words to her? Certainly not him, if she ever found him, no matter how much she might long for that spontaneous, casual, everyday recognition. No, instead, she would have to say them for him. ‘It’s Agnes.’ This time she said it out loud. Like a cartoon character, she imagined the phrase solidifying within the bubble of her visible outflow of breath. Not yet thirty, she thought, and here I am speaking to myself in the street like some ranting, demented bag woman. This is what he is doing to me. The sooner I meet and challenge him, the sooner I can get out of this depressing place. ‘Your daughter.’ She might even have to add that explanation, for what had he retained through his transformations from Fernando to René to Joe to whoever he might dissimulate under today? Had he ever, apart from his biological connection, truly been her father? Would the outcome be any different if she simply arraigned the next male stranger she saw and vented her spleen on him? The man coming towards her now, for instance. In the street light, he looked too young to possibly be her father, but what did it really matter?

  ‘Yes, it’s just a block away. Turn right and right again. You can’t miss it.’

  She thanked him. Up until her mother’s death, she had suited herself and it had suited her well enough. She had lived in the present and had looked forward to the future. The past had been none of her business. Then one day she had laid her hand on her mother’s hand and had felt the burning of her skin and said, ‘It’s alright. It’s Agnes.’ But all too soon that skin was cold. Her mother stopped being with her on earth, and, as a consequence, the possible continuing existence of her father inexorably wormed its way back into her future.

  She followed the directions she had been given, but on rounding the corner there was still no sight of the Veterinarian Hall. The street culminated in a T-shaped cul-de-sac. Before its containing wall, two alleyways led off it: one to the left, the other to the right. Both looked dismal and uninviting. Light shining from a coffee stall at the end of the one on the left drew Agnes towards it. As she approached, she recognised its striped awning as belonging to the Sunrise Tea & Coffee Company whose outlets she had seen in other parts of the city, though why people wanted to drink out in the open in winter was beyond her.

  A man and a woman stood with their backs to the counter facing her. They were conversing in what sounded like Mirandan. She ordered a coffee and asked if the Hall was nearby. The attendant apologised and explained that this was her first stint at this particular location and she did not know the area well. ‘It’s just I feel I’m going round in circles and never getting there,’ Agnes said. ‘I’m beginning to wonder if the place really exists.’

  ‘It exists all right,’ the woman customer said. ‘You’ve come the wrong way. Go back and at the top of the street turn left. It’s on the right side. You won’t miss it. Are you going to a film or a concert there?’

  ‘A concert. Wilson Loumans, an American pianist, is playing there tonight.’

  ‘Ah. I teach at the Music Conservatory just behind us here. I’m Monserrat Selle. Everyone calls me Monse. This is my husband, Albert.’

  ‘Emily Brown.’ Agnes put down her cup. They shook hands.

  Albert smiled. ‘A cock with two hens,’ he said. ‘Perhaps before dawn I’ll have managed to round up some more.’

  Monse dug him playfully in the ribs. ‘Behave, my sweet. This macho preening never leaves them. Really, they’re mummy’s boys afraid to show how feminine they can be. Take no notice, Emily. Do you work in Greenlea or have you come specifically to hear Mr, what was his name?’

  ‘Loumans. I’m on a visit, but my father once played with him and it’s a coincidence not to be missed.’

  ‘Your father’s a musician, a famous one?’ Albert asked.

  Agnes shook her head. ‘Famous no, but he used to play a lot when I was young.’

  ‘Ah, youth,’ Albert murmured and added something in Mirandan.

  ‘You’re both Mirandan?’

  ‘We are,’ Monse said. ‘Do you speak the language?’

  ‘No.’ Agnes paused. ‘This may seem a strange question, but have you ever heard of a man called Fernando Cheto Simon? I’m sorry. It’s a stupid idea.’

  ‘Not at all,’ replied Albert. ‘Things collide. People bump into each other. Two days ago I would have said no to your question, but only the other night a friend of ours mentioned the same name. However, as we told him, we don’t know the person.’

  ‘And your friend who asked?’

  ‘A fellow countryman—Sonny Ayza. Monse’s known him since he was a youngster.’

  ‘It’s time we went,’ Monse said. ‘Nice meeting you, Emily.’

  ‘Time we weren’t here,’ Albert added. ‘Enjoy your concert.’

  When they had gone, Agnes finished her coffee and retraced her steps. Something Alakhin had said, something about the possible danger of others finding her father as well as herself, slipped into her mind. Roberto Ayza had been busy making inquiries on his own account. Only today, she had begun to treat him as a friend. Was she right to do so or had he motives she had yet to understand? The answer still eluded her as, obeying Monse’s instructions, she spotted a stream of people entering a glass doorway across the street.

  She was late. She had arrived ten minutes after the concert was due to start. Directed by an usher, she shuffled past the knees of the already seated people to her place at F8. The auditorium was noisy. There was a chill in the air, making her wish she had not left her coat in the foyer cloakroom. On the raised platform in front of her, a Bosendorfer grand piano awaited Loumans. The green velvet curtains behind it betrayed no movement. Above her head, the ceiling receded into a stained glass cupola.

  ‘O mortals listen here!’ A deep male bass voice seemed to emanate from the rear of the narrow hall. While heads turned towards it, the curtains parted and a slight stooped figure of a man in a long white tunic began to blow energetically into the open strings of the piano, alternating his breathing with downward jabs of the heel of his right hand. ‘O mortals attend within. It is in the making numinous!’ The voice spoke for a second time and then was silent. Loumans moved away from the piano strings and seated himself at the keyboard. For a moment, he appeared lost in contemplation, oblivious of his audience, then he tapped his foot and began to play an ever rising tumult of notes. Hunched over the keyboard, his absorption was total. Sweat glistened on his forehead as traces of melody emerged and disappeared amid the clusters of chords and extended runs of his right hand. Dissonances refused to be resolved as he introduced them over and over until they, too, subsided into short lyrical bursts which gave way to more sustained crescendos.

  Agnes had literally heard nothing like it. Although her mind switched off from time to time, the fury of Loumans’ attack and the coaxing tenderness he evoked, which occasionally seemed to plead for more space, drew her into the music to a degree that surprised her.

  After about twenty minutes, he stopped briefly before continuing. A hesitant scatter of applause gathered momentum into a few shouts and whistles while some other members of the audience got up and left ostentatiously. The sound of their retreating feet and the slight creak of the door springs punctuated the opening calmer mood of his second piece. Agnes thought about her father playing with him. No doubt, the music was different then. ‘I felt he was getting ready to leave the life. To tell the truth, his heart wasn’t in it.’ The words of the young drummer on the tape came back to her. Loumans, in contrast, was thoroughly committed. He was what he was doing. His concentration was total. His whole being was focused on the execution and realisation of his task. Variations of notes were pursued and pursued until, momentarily satisfied, he let them fade and the theme re-emerged. He lives for this expression, Agnes realised. In his case, the music was his name and identity.
/>   After the concert was over and Loumans had not reappeared to play an encore, Agnes waited in her seat until her row was clear before venturing backstage. She was not sure whether her presence would be welcomed or her questions answered, but in the end she had no choice but to press forward. She, therefore, made her way to the foyer and, showing her pass, asked for the artists’ room. The front of house attendant checked it then pointed to the flight of stairs which led to the basement. Agnes descended them and paused in front of the third door in the dimly lit passageway. She knocked twice. There was no answer. She knocked again. This time a youth opened the door. His body blocked her view of the interior, apart from the dark-blue patch of paint visible beyond his head.

  ‘Emily Brown. I’ve an appointment to see Mr Loumans.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ a voice said.

  The youth stepped aside. Agnes went in. Loumans was seated on a disintegrating imitation leather sofa. He was naked from the waist up except for a white towel draped about his shoulders. A bottle of cognac and four plastic glasses were on a low table in front of him. ‘Come in, Ms Brown,’ he said. ‘Fetch her a chair, Jimmy. This,’ he pointed to the sofa, ‘like me, has seen better days. Do you take alcohol?’ Agnes nodded. ‘Good.’ He poured out a measure. ‘I always did say I’d have a drink with Emily Brown one day. Lovable, huggable Emily Brown. Miss Brown to you,’ he sang the last phrase. ‘That’s right, Jimmy, put it here. You can leave us now. We’ll both be fine. No offence, Emily.’ He waited until Agnes sat down and took a sip of her drink before asking, ‘Are you a critic or a music lover stroke thesis researcher? I’m too old and last decade’s thing to have groupies come and visit me.’ He took a long pull at his glass and mopped his sweating brow with the towel. ‘Seriously, nobody’s called Emily Brown these days.’