by John Elliott
Fine snow was blowing out over the estuary. Sonny Ayza stayed at the rail, listening to the tape of Forest Mushroom he had bought yesterday on his rarely used Walkman. The song was a siguiriya: the couplet once made famous by El Nitri, a fabled singer of the previous century. Flakes landed and melted on the iron between his hands. Ahead, the same line of tankers he had seen on his previous journey weighed at anchor. Astern, Greenlea’s slopes vanished into the murky lowering of the sky.
‘You won’t be able to leave. No matter where you go.’ Forest Mushroom’s words spooled back like an unrecorded guitar accompaniment to the austere bleakness of the lament. Out here on deck, open to the elements, he thought of Albert’s confession of fear. ‘Man overboard!’ Would the cry, heard or unheard, be so terrible in his own case?
To the graveyard I am destined.
For God’s sake, companion,
don’t let me die alone:
I wish to die by your side.
Thanks to Tian’s tuition years ago, he recognised Forest Mushroom’s final couplet as belonging to Curro Pablas, a contemporary of El Nitri. Fernando Cheto Simon awaited him in his house in Massard on the Panalquin side, but he was neither a divine shepherd nor a companion, although their parents had seemingly intertwined their respective childhoods through the sending and keeping of his beloved sketches. In addition, they both shared Llomera as a birthplace, while otherwise they remained strangers who had never bumped into each other until their chance encounter with Jacob Kemmer. All the time their relationship had been known yet unknown: known through the spate of Joe May stories and iconography in which Chance Company recruits once were inducted; yet unknown, until Agnes had divulged it, in respect of who Joe May really was, and known as well, in a sense, by his daily attendances at the Sunrise Tea & Coffee stalls where, without being in the slightest way aware of the identity of their owner, he had contributed to the other’s livelihood.
The compilation tape rolled on. The repertoire changed first to faster paced bulerias then to some saccharine renditions of commercial hybrids, which had characterised Forest Mushroom’s later career. On his brief shopping trip, he had been unable to unearth any Antonio Escobar recordings. No doubt, if any had been extant, Monse would have mentioned them in her notes.
He switched off the tape and removed the headphones, slipping them and the Walkman back into his coat pocket. Panalquin docks came into sight round the rust covered stern of one of the tankers. He thought of the cave in the hinterland above Cirit and the three boys temporarily confined there. Had the bond between them, especially the bond between Manolo and Tian, been forged there or had it already always existed? Rosario told one story; Tian another. Now Tian, too, was dead, and, in Veri’s occasional accounts from Miranda, Rosario, day by day, recaptured less and less of what had been and who exactly she was. Only he shuffled them around in his mind and made them speak in half-remembered Llomeran streets and in Paca Ceret’s wine shop whose topography, to tell the truth, he had partially invented. How often had he actually been permitted to go inside when Tony Pigeon read his comic book or when My Son tipped his cap brim back and ordered another drink and one for My Son over there? True, he did clearly recall squinting into its mysterious interior from the safety of the doorway, but what had he really glimpsed apart from the total lack of light and the rise and fall of indistinguishable voices? If he was honest, Iusebio was nothing more than a name to him: a name which Rosario sometimes invoked as a stalwart and loyal companion to her dead husband, and Paca, herself, was really only a hazy amalgam drawn from a gallery of old women, all of whom dressed in omnipresent black. Amongst them, Batiste alone had re-emerged after the war and given himself a concrete existence. Fernando, his son, in practice, knew the place and its inhabitants far better than he did. Manolo had wanted their safety. He had entrusted his family to the man he knew secretly loved his wife. There was no going back on it. The dead were dead, but for some reason he would not let them rest. ‘We’ll disinter the bones and give our upbringings a proper funeral,’ Guthrie/Fernando had said. This morning he would find out if such a thing was truly possible.
The dock drew ever closer. He looked down from the deck at the knot of people standing on the quay, waiting for the ferry to berth, then joined the line of passengers gathered at the exit from which the gangway would soon be lowered.
Stepping ashore, still trying to banish any thought of Manolo and Tian and what they might have said to each other, he made his way beyond the quay to the taxi rank. At this hour, fares appeared to be scarce, because a long line of cabs stretched back towards him from the head of the queue. As he passed, several of the cabbies, in spite of the continuing flurries of snow, were leaning against the doors and boots of their vehicles, engaged in conversation. Determined not to repeat yesterday’s circuitous and idiosyncratic journey, he was glad to see his erstwhile driver was amongst them. When he reached the first available taxi, he got in, and, as well as giving his destination, he instructed the driver to take the east town intersection. The man nodded. They pulled away.
While they moved in stops and starts along the boundary of the newly pedestrianised shopping centre of north Panalquin, the driver broke the prevailing silence with a sequence of what he obviously considered were topics of common, current interest. What did he think of the Kraus fraternity phenomenon? Were they political or was it a new advertising strategy as some said? Had he heard the latest news bulletin about Albert Wende threatening to go on hunger strike? Did he know what it was costing to keep him and his brother banged up month after month? Sonny replied tersely and mostly in the negative. He would have preferred not to have been asked, but at least it was better than listening to hackneyed myths about Minty Wallace and the Bird Woman of Massard.
Outside the window, the snow was abating. The surface of the road was slushy and wet. The driver switched off the windscreen wipers. Buildings, people, cars, street furniture, overhead sign gantries, surrounded them. Sonny leant back in his seat and contemplated the things in the world. Like the driver, he also had to pass the time. Lights changed. Traffic moved on. The driver broached the topic of the forthcoming railmen’s strike. Everything proceeded. Everything went somewhere. The things in the world were in unstoppable motion. ‘Happy to be there. Happy to be here.’ He thought of Sylvia’s face as she had said the words, her calm certainty as she related the story of Monica Randell. ‘It may not happen,’ he said in response to the driver’s last question.
The turn off for Massard appeared ahead. The cab jockeyed into the filter lane. Soon, they were beyond the highway and descending the tree-lined avenues to the privileged enclave.
‘You wanted Bayford?’
Sonny nodded. ‘Number 11.’
‘Most of them have names. They don’t think numbers fit the bill round here. Bayford’s on the right. Want me to take you to the door?’
‘No. I’ll walk the rest. Exercise will do me good.’
He paid the cab at the foot of the driveway and watched as it turned and drove off. After the initial bend, an extensive lawn spread to his left, leading up to a substantial two-storey villa built in the hunting-lodge style. A monkey-puzzle tree, its symmetric branches sticking out in the now wan sunlight, rose from the middle of its turf. On the other side, banks of rhododendron bushes concealed what lay beyond. He gained the front door and rang the bell. There was no answer. The only sound was the chirping of some unseen bird. He rang again. Looking through the nearest window, he saw what looked like a study. There was no one in it. He rang once more, sensing a replay of his experience at Old Station Yard. Again there was no response. He walked round the gravel path at the side of the house to its back. More lawn sloped down past an ornamental pond to the boundary fence and a wooded dell. Three people stood in a glass conservatory attached to the rear of the building. Fernando and Agnes faced him. The other man had his back towards him, but his figure was familiar. He turned the door handle and walked in. As he had surmised, Antoine Viall, Chance Company’s serial client, was the
third person.
Something was very wrong. He read it at once in the expressions on Agnes’s and Fernando’s faces.
‘Roberto,’ Agnes said in a husky, unnatural tone. Fernando raised his eyebrows in way of a silent greeting. Viall turned slowly. He was holding a small gun, which he quickly swivelled back to train on Fernando.
Sonny was so surprised he muttered something about stopping play-acting before being at a loss for words.
Fernando said, ‘Whatever your grievance is I can sort it out. Now, with Mr Ayza here as well, you can see how ridiculous the situation has become. I sense you already know this man, Sonny. Perhaps you can shed some light on our present predicament.’
‘I think I can. He’s possibly carried away with the melodrama of his assumed identity. Lucas, I . . . ’ He did not finish because there at his side, having burst in with extreme rapidity, as if out of nowhere, was Agnes’s companion of last night, Emmet Briggs.
Time seemed to go crazy, slowing down implausibly while Emmet looked at Agnes, stared at Fernando, a smile crossing his face, then hurtled himself into a blurred vortex of action as Viall’s finger tightened round the trigger. Agnes moved in front of her father and Emmet seized Viall’s wrist. A shot rang out. It was a sound Sonny had never heard properly before. The gun dropped to the floor, and as it did so Emmet hurled Antoine into the corner, where he crumpled against a stone-circled water feature, his nose covered in blood.
Pain. Unbearable, excruciating, unimaginable pain roared through and clawed at Sonny’s entrails. He realised it might be a good idea to lie down but found his back was already pressed hard to the floor. A blur flashed past him, and he heard a distant voice say, ‘Let him go.’ Pain, tearing zigzagging pain. When he had sufficiently rested, he would get up and go. They could call a cab. He would be on board the next ferry in, what was the phrase? Two shakes of some animal’s tail. Dogs, that was it. The world was full of dogs with different names. Pain. Someone was screaming. The ludicrous thought surfaced that it might even be him. He saw the waves cream past the rail. Over the spume, a tilting, tossing buoy was clanging out its sonorous bell. Pain. An intense furnace was burning his gut into molten lead. Back in his own room, a bottle of brandy and a mound of tablets were waiting for him on the table. He swallowed hard. He must get up and walk. Organise himself, that was the watchword. There was a strange taste in his mouth. A taste he could not recognise properly due to the pain. In its horrendous grip, the screaming stilled. Christ, he thought, I hope I haven’t shat myself. Safety. Manolo had wanted safety for him, Veri and Rosario. The letter they stole need never have been read. Pain. The pain was something awry to time. It was making the words he heard people say into gibberish. A cat. A cat was there to help him. A cat with its paw raised and its Japanese miaows. What a joke it had been. What a joke it would be if it was not for the pain. A telephone rang; only it was not a telephone. Batiste took off his jacket and draped it over his bare shoulders. A woman’s face bent over him. It filled the whole world alongside the now shrieking pain. Whose face was it? He struggled to make it out; then it became clear. His eyes were still okay in spite of the agony. It was Mado’s face, her every feature so discernible, now so vividly etched in his memory. He tried to get his lips to form what he wanted to know. ‘Who is Vera Sowenwell?’
*
Agnes raised herself from Sonny’s prone body. Viall, in the meantime, had staggered to his feet and fled. ‘Emmet,’ she said. ‘I can’t feel his pulse.’ She turned and looked round when there was no reply.
Fernando came back into the conservatory. ‘The ambulance is on its way. I’ve also called the police.’ Emmet stared at him. He had picked up Viall’s gun and wrapped his handkerchief around its butt.
‘Don’t bother with that now. It’s not important. I need your help,’ Agnes told him. ‘Stupid as it is I think Roberto may be dying. Please come.’
‘Shouldn’t you leave his gun where it was for the police to find?’ Fernando said.
Emmet emitted a deep sigh. The steady trickle of water splashing on the stones in the corner reminded him suddenly of the kid and his uplifted hands. ‘Manny said we’d be picking up your bones when we last met at Veldar, but in the end you just upped and walked away. Today he’s dead and you’re still alive.’
‘For God’s sake, Emmet,’ Agnes cried, ‘this is serious.’
With a lingering stare at Fernando, Emmet let the gun drop. He knelt down beside Agnes. ‘He’s far gone,’ he said, after he had felt in vain for a pulse. ‘I don’t know if he can be revived.’
‘You wish someone ill for years and then it happens. He only came because I invited him, an invitation I very nearly didn’t give,’ Fernando said, almost as if he were speaking to himself.
Emmet stood up. ‘I’m going to go. I’ve no place here.’ He touched Agnes’s shoulder. ‘Tell them I wasn’t here if you feel able to, or else I was, but you had never seen me before. Say that Ayza struggled with Viall. Either way just give me some hours and I won’t be in Greenlea. After that it all depends whether they believe Viall when they catch up with him.’
‘Why on earth should we do that?’ Fernando said quietly.
‘I’m asking your daughter not you. You must do whatever you want. My silence, however, is in your interest if you wish to go on living this existence.’
Agnes nodded. ‘I won’t say you were here.’
Taking a long, last look at Fernando, Emmet left. Agnes started to cry softly. She laid her forehead against Sonny’s.
‘Would you have felt like this if he had managed to shoot me instead?’ Fernando asked. ‘After all, for some obscure reason known only to him, I was his intended target. No, I know it’s a tactless question, a selfish one, one I’ve no right to ask.’ The ring of the doorbell interrupted whatever else it was he was going to say. He left to answer it and returned immediately with two paramedics carrying a stretcher.
‘I’m afraid we’re too late. He’s already dead,’ one of them pronounced as he got up from the body. ‘As he has been shot, and as I understand the police are on their way, we can’t move him. I suggest we don’t touch anything in here and wait for them in another room.’
‘I don’t want to leave,’ Agnes said.
‘I understand how you must feel. Is he a relative? Your father perhaps? But it’s best we go. You can see that, sir.’
A police siren sounded in the distance. Agnes reluctantly joined Fernando as they retired to the dining room next door, leaving the paramedics in the hallway.
‘Stay with me, Agnes,’ Fernando said. ‘I’ve got this house and a good business. We could share them both until you found something better to do. Please let me try to make amends.’
She shook her head. ‘I never asked Emmet exactly why he was here. No. Your suggestion isn’t possible. We’d both be living a lie. It would be the same as playing at a Chance Company scenario, a faked case of father and daughter. I won’t do it.’
‘What will you do?’
‘I decided on it last night. Once all this is over, and I’ve told the police about the four of us being here, I’ve decided to go back to the beginning.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I’m going to go to Miranda, to Llomera, and I’ll take it from there. I’ll find my relatives. Some of them must still be there, and I’ll visit Roberto’s. I need to tell them what happened to him, describe to them what they didn’t see, but what will you do?’
The doorbell rang again. They listened while the paramedics opened it and admitted the police. ‘What I’m accustomed to doing,’ Fernando said. ‘I don’t think I can change now.’
*
The phone rang. He walked back into his office and picked it up.
‘Harvard Smith.’
Silence gathered at the other end. He repeated his name, then, after a pause, Evangeline replied.
‘We’ve found him, Harvard. I saw him again last night. He’s not greatly changed. I knew if we put Loumans and Emily Brown together it w
ould work out fine. We talked about the book, and I told him how I’d managed to get into his thoughts. I just want to thank you for your help. Believe me I won’t forget it. It’s a wonderful thing you’ve done. I’ll be thinking of you, and, of course, when the book of his life is published I’ll reserve a very special copy just for you. Be in touch soon.’
He put the phone down. Standing at the window, he looked across the precinct to the Issa Tower. Someone there, framed in a window at the same level as his own, was gazing downwards to the concrete below. A faint ray of sunlight sparkled against the glass eliding his image. Harvard returned to the paperwork piled on his desk. All he had to do now was to sit tight and wait for confirmation.
APPENDIX
MAIN CHARACTERS
Roberto ‘Sonny’ Ayza: a self-exiled Mirandan, working for Chance Company.
Fernando Cheto Simon: a Mirandan man of many parts.
Agnes Darshel: a daughter seeking an errant father.
Emmet Briggs: an ex-gangster.
IDENTITIES
Emily Brown
Elizabeth Kerry
Joe May
Renè Darshel
Andrew Guthrie
Antoine Viall
TELL-TALES
Sylvia Manjon: a coffee stall attendant.
Corinne: a native of Veldar.
Forest Mushroom: a Mirandan singer.
Jacob Kemmer: a pavement artist.
‘Cheb’ Alakhin: a retired detective.
OTHERS
Manolo Ayza: Sonny’s dead father.
Rosario: Sonny’s mother.
Veronica ‘Veri’: Sonny’s sister.
Sebastian ‘Tian’ Marva: Sonny’s stepfather.
Madeleine ‘Mado’ César: Sonny’s ex-lover.
Antonetta Simon: Fernando’s mother.
Gloria: Antonetta’s sister.
Iusebio: Gloria’s dead husband.
Batiste Cheto: Fernando’s father.
