The Girl with the Phony Name

by Charles Mathes

  Lucy expected giant, stone-faced officers to search through their bags, yell questions, perhaps wheel out a fluoroscope. Instead a little man in a blue shirt took their passports without even looking up.

  “What is the purpose of your trip?” he said in a flat British voice. Lucy wondered if everyone could hear her heart pounding.

  “Investigate investment opportunities in U.K.,” replied Wing, who seemed to have taken over for both of them. He was very subdued, very matter-of-fact. Maybe he did have some survival sense after all, Lucy marveled.

  “How long do you plan to be here?”

  “Few weeks. Maybe less.”

  “And you, miss?”

  “I’m Mr. Wing’s secretary.”

  “Miss … Snicowski,” said the man, looking up for the first time from her documents.

  Lucy stiffened automatically.

  “Yes, sir,” she said, looking at the floor.

  “Have a pleasant stay in Great Britain.”

  “Thank you very much,” said Wing. Lucy bowed automatically. She had been hanging around a certain Oriental gentleman too long. The man stamped their passports and passed them back through the little window of his booth.

  Wing was already speeding down the hall. Lucy followed at a run and didn’t look back until she had cleared the international arrival area. No Royal Marines were in pursuit. There wasn’t even a suspicious bobby.

  “How you like England so far?” Wing finally grinned.

  “I expected something more exotic,” Lucy said, looking around for the first time. The airport was like any other airport, the people still looked like people, the Musak was Rodgers and Hammerstein.

  “We must find shuttle plane to Scotland,” he said, scurrying down the hall. “Have less than hour to catch flight.” He pronounced it “fright,” which Lucy found apropos. She had already caught fright. Now she took a deep breath and let her heart descend out of her throat and settle back where it belonged.

  So far so good. She had successfully managed to gain entry illegally to Great Britain. She was now an international criminal.

  SEVENTEEN

  The shuttle plane broke through the clouds over Glasgow. Lucy stared out the window, disappointed. It looked like any industrial town in New England: narrow, red-brick houses, high-rise apartments, and office buildings. Only the chimneys were odd—tapering cannons pointing defiantly at the gray sky.

  “You okay, Rucy?” Wing asked as they deplaned.

  “I have an adrenaline headache, I have jet lag, and these damned contact lenses are destroying my eyeballs. Other than that I feel great.”

  “Still not want to wear Tina’s glasses?”

  “I can’t believe that being totally blind is going to help my chances, Mr. Wing. In fact I think I should drop this whole ridiculous disguise.”

  “Better for fox to look like hound sometime,” said Wing, wearing his favorite inscrutable expression.

  “Just what every woman wants to hear,” said Lucy.

  “What if you don’t like what you find? What if what you find don’t like you? This way you have out.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Wing,” Lucy nodded. “You’re right. I didn’t mean to snap. I’m just a little nervous today. Lord knows why.”

  “Wing understand. We find connecting plane, go to Lis, everything okay. Okay?”

  Lucy nodded.

  The Glasgow airport was old-fashioned, but familiar. It was still hard for Lucy to believe she was in another country. There were no men in kilts, no bagpipers. Young men in blue jeans and leather jackets stood around, their hands in their pockets. Women in tweed coats sat on benches. Only when people spoke did the place seem foreign. Everyone sounded like he was choking on a chicken bone.

  Everyone also seemed to be staring at them.

  Lucy was sure it was because she looked so suspicious in her disguise until a thin, black-haired man in a short coat stepped out in front of them and jabbed Wing with his finger.

  “What aire you supposed to be?” he said ominously in the strange gutteral dialect, staring at Wing’s top hat. Wing stared straight into the man’s eyes for a moment, then smiled.

  “Wing undertaker looking for new business. How you feeling?”

  “I feel fine,” said the man indignantly.

  “Glad to hear that,” said Wing, whipping out a business card. “Come see me when you kick bucket. I give you discount.”

  The man stood staring at the card as Wing walked briskly on, Lucy at his heels.

  “Friendry place!” he said happily. Lucy didn’t have the heart to argue. All she wanted was a shrimp cocktail and a hot shower. Did they have shrimp in Scotland? she wondered. Did they have showers?

  The Island Air commuter terminal turned out to be simply a desk by a door. There were some folding chairs, but there was no one around. Lucy sat down and opened the bag of sandwiches Aunt Sally had given her the day before, a world away.

  “Tuna or ham?” she said.

  “Ham,” replied Wing.

  She handed him the soggy sandwich and they ate in silence. Lucy was really beginning to hate tuna.

  “When does plane leave?” Wing yawned after he finished eating. Lucy checked their tickets.

  “Another forty minutes.”

  “Wake, please.”

  Wing tilted his top hat over his face. In no more than two minutes he was breathing heavily, obviously asleep. Lucy stared at the little figure, wondering how in the world the man could sleep at a time like this. Here they were, a million miles from nowhere—she illegally—headed toward a place with which their only connection was a dead man and a word on an old piece of jewelry. Was she the only one with enough sense to be scared shitless?

  After a while an elderly couple, laden with suitcases, sat down across from her in two of the folding chairs. The woman smiled at Lucy.

  “Going to Lis, dearie?”

  “Yes, I am,” Lucy said nervously, glancing at the sleeping figure of Wing. She was on her own.

  “First time then?” The woman had a brusque voice and wore a tweed coat. Her accent was English.

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  “You don’t exactly look like a local,” said the woman and laughed heartily.

  “What you put them things in your ear for?” said the man, equally enthusiastic and shaped like a beer can.

  Lucy gulped. “Decoration?”

  “We’re the Pembles,” said the woman, obviously pleased with the fact. “I’m Maura. He’s Tim.”

  “I’m … Tina Snicowski.”

  “What kind of a name is that?” demanded Tim.

  Lucy realized she had no idea.

  “We’re from Weehawken,” she stammered.

  Maura nodded. “Is that near Estonia?”

  “You’ll be just another white settler on Lis,” chortled Tim.

  “A what?”

  “That’s what the natives call you if you try to improve any island properties. They’re a stupid, indolent lot, don’t have the brains to appreciate the beauty of what they’ve got. We have a lovely vacation cottage, used to be a dump, practically. The little blighters treat us like dirt for fixing it up.”

  The woman nodded. “All they’re interested in is a handout. You’ll see. Made nothing of the place in a thousand years, but they resent anyone who tries to bring a little money into their economy. It’s simply scandalous.”

  “And they’re nasty, too,” said Tim. “One of them threatened to give me a ‘creepie’ when I was down on my knees trying to paint our porch. A creepie, can you imagine?”

  “What brings you to Lis?” said Maura eagerly.

  “My boss is looking for investments,” said Lucy nervously, certain the Pembles were spies for English customs.

  “Him?” said Tim, gesturing at Wing with his chin.

  “Yes.”

  “He’s going to be disappointed then, he is. Just another white settler, that’s all he’ll be on Lis.”

  “Well, he likes new experience
s.”

  “Where are you staying?” asked Tim.

  Lucy dug into her travel folder. “In Iolair. At the Manor Lodge. Actually we hoped to stay in Dumlagchtat, but there doesn’t seem to be a hotel there.”

  “There’s nothing there at all,” said the woman with a sniff. “Whatever did you want to go there for?”

  “I have a friend whose people were from Dumlagchtat,” said Lucy, carefully trying out the cover story she and Wing had invented. “I promised I’d look them up while I’m here. Do you know any of the local history?”

  “Good God, no,” snorted the man. “Waste of time. Nothing ever happened there.”

  “All of yiu fer Lis?” said a voice behind them. Lucy looked around. A slender boy in a leather coat was unlocking the door to the field. He looked about fifteen years old.

  “I’m Ronnie MacPherson, yer pilot. If you hand me yer tickets we can get goin’ afore the rain.”

  Lucy rose and shook Wing’s arm, gently. He pushed his top hat back into place and was up in an instant, oblivious to the Pembles’ open-mouthed stares.

  “Are you a Chinaman or a Jap?” said Tim finally.

  Maura nudged him in the side with her elbow.

  “He can’t help what he is, ducks,” Tim chuckled. “No offense intended there, guv. So which is it?”

  “Wing from Weehawken,” said Wing, winking at Lucy and handing his ticket to MacPherson.

  They all followed the boy out onto the tarmac toward an airplane that looked to Lucy like a Volvo station wagon with wings.

  “Is this the plane?” she exclaimed.

  “Aye. Dinna worry about not havin’ enough room. We kin seat six when we put in t’other seat. Ah think here comes yer baggage.”

  An old man in a plaid shirt was wheeling out Wing’s bag and Lucy’s two suitcases on a cart. He and Ronnie threw them into the rear of the plane along with the Pembles’ carry-ons.

  “All aboard,” said MacPherson.

  “You sit up front with pilot, Tina,” said Wing, taking the single seat at the very rear of the tiny cabin.

  The Pembles took their places, chattering happily, as if flying in oversized juice crates was their idea of a good time. Lucy could hear thunder in the distance. Practically trembling with fear, she got in next to Ronnie MacPherson. He pressed a few buttons, the single propeller started to turn, they taxied.

  MacPherson conversed incomprehensibly with the tower, then suddenly they were speeding down the runway. Lucy could feel the wheels leaving the ground and stared, horrified, as Glasgow receded beneath them.

  “It’s parfectly safe,” smiled the boy pilot proudly, lighting up a cigarette. Rain clattered in sheets against the windows. Lucy felt every muscle in her body stiffen up, but no one else seemed to notice. Wing began telling the Pembles some lie about how he once had lived in Mayfair. MacPherson grinned like an idiot. Lucy put her hands in her lap and reacquainted herself with God.

  The plane rose to cruising altitude and followed the coast northward. Maura and Tim regaled Wing with unflattering stories about the Lis locals. The overcast sky made the farms and cliffs the same color as the sea. At one point Lucy shut her eyes and tried to sleep but couldn’t. The tiny plane bounced wrenchingly though air currents and turbulence. After what seemed an eternity, they crossed a small body of water and banked over a strange island that looked like the back of an enormous sea creature.

  “Lis,” said MacPherson, winking at her.

  Lucy looked down at the red mountains rising out of the ocean and at last felt like she was truly in a foreign land. The place below looked like the surface of the moon.

  EIGHTEEN

  Lucy was in a lecture room at Harvard. Why hadn’t she gotten around to studying for this test? How could she have been so lazy, so foolish?

  The other students effortlessly filled out their blue books. The men were all ex-presidents of their suburban high-school classes and captains of their football teams. The women were cheerleaders with perfect features and extensive wardrobes. Lucy looked down at her clothes, covered with food stains from her job in the cafeteria. She didn’t even know what the question was, for some reason. She tried to shrink in her seat, to be invisible.

  “Lucy MacAlpin Trelaine.”

  She looked up with a start. The professor was right in front of her, staring at her blank test booklet.

  “Why aren’t you prepared, Miss Trelaine?” said the professor angrily. “Is this how you intend to live your life?”

  “What are you doing at Harvard?” asked a well-dressed young woman with a tight smile.

  “You just don’t have what it takes!” a perfect-looking young man in a blue suit yelled from the back.

  “You’re not wanted here,” said another. “You don’t belong.”

  “Get out, get out!” chanted the class rhythmically.

  Lucy opened her eyes and for a moment didn’t know where she was. The walls were whitewashed, the ceiling was beamed. It was a large room with sunlight pouring through mullioned windows, catching dust motes in midair. A cherrywood highboy sat in the corner. A hooked rug was thrown over the wide planks of the flooring.

  Lucy sat up with a start, shaking the dream from her head. Suddenly she remembered. This was the Manor Lodge. She was in Iolair. On Lis.

  Lucy had had this dream before. No matter how much she told herself she didn’t care about flunking out of Harvard, she knew she had cared. It was awful not to measure up, not to belong. She struggled into control of herself, then walked to the bathroom to brush her teeth and sort out yesterday’s events in her mind.

  There had been no taxi or bus service from the airstrip, since most of the traffic onto the island was by ferry. The Pembles had had their car parked at the remote landing field, however, and had given Lucy and Wing a lift to the hotel.

  It was a twenty-minute drive. Maura and Tim had talked nonstop, but afterward Lucy couldn’t remember a word of the conversation, just the stark glens of deer grass and new heather, the twisted hawthorns and hazel bushes, the pink granite cliffs and waterfalls, the black volcanic peaks against the slate gray sky.

  The huge old hotel sat atop a sheer escarpment overlooking Loch Hagstal. It was a stone building. All the buildings she saw were stone, which was not surprising. Except for a few carefully fenced areas, there seemed to be no trees anywhere on Lis.

  It had been midafternoon when they arrived at the Manor Lodge and were shown to adjoining rooms. Wing had wanted to get something to eat, Lucy told him to go on without her.

  She had badly needed to sleep, but there was something that Lucy had to do first, something she wanted to do alone. She had waited until Wing’s footsteps disappeared down the hall, then picked up the tiny island phone-directory. It had taken her a long time to work up the courage to open the book. This was the moment of truth.

  There were no Trelaines.

  There were no MacAlpins.

  There wasn’t even a Fingon.

  Lucy had drawn a deep breath, not understanding why she felt so relieved. Then she had taken a long, hot bath in the huge, claw-footed bathtub—there was no shower—and fallen into a deep and instant sleep.

  Now it was morning. Washed and feeling human again, Lucy put on a pair of slacks and a sweater and headed downstairs. Halfway down the hall she turned and dashed back to her room. She had forgotten to put in her contact lenses. Luckily, no one had seen her.

  “Remind me to be more careful, will you?” Lucy said to a responsible-looking chair. Wing was right. It would be better to remain as Tina. At least for now.

  Brown-eyed again, Lucy ventured down the vast staircase. A breakfast buffet was set up in the sprawling dining room.

  “Good morning … Tina,” said Wing, rising from behind a plate piled with eggs, smoked fish, and sausages.

  “Good morning, Mr. Wing,” Lucy said, suddenly realizing how famished she was.

  “Go get food. You look hungry. You sleep okay?”

  “Like a baby,” she replied and heade
d for the buffet.

  Though it was still early in the tourist season, the Manor Lodge was already crowded, which was not surprising considering that it was the only hotel on the south side of the island. It had once been a hunting retreat. Heads of stags graced the battered, dark, wood-paneled walls. Most of the accents Lucy heard at the tables around her were English, tourists on holiday. Several of the tourists were staring at Wing as if they had never seen an Oriental undertaker in an opera cape and top hat at breakfast before.

  “So where we start?” said Wing, after Lucy finished her second helping of eggs and third cup of strong, black coffee.

  “I guess we should rent a car,” she said.

  “We go to unpronounceable town?”

  “Dumlagchtat.”

  “Okay. I drive.”

  “Maybe I better drive.”

  “You have Tina Snicowski driver license?”

  “No,” said Lucy, “but I’m sure it will be okay.”

  “Not okay,” said Wing decisively. “You get ticket, cop ask for passport, we are in deep doo-doo. Wing drive.”

  “I suppose you have a license?”

  Wing pulled one out of his pocket and grinned.

  “Wing driver first-class. Used to be chauffeur for fish long time ago.”

  “Are you sure you can still handle a car?”

  Wing nodded vigorously and signed the check.

  “We have lots of fun. You see. Come, come, come.”

  Lucy followed him to the hotel desk with all the enthusiasm of a condemned murderer. The thought of careening around a strange country on the wrong side of the road with Wing at the wheel was about as appealing as menstrual cramps.

  “We wish to rent car, please,” said Wing, bowing to the clerk, a middle-aged man with sandy hair.

  “I am sorry, but there are no rental caires on Lis,” said the man, trying to conceal his surprise at finding such an unlikely figure before him.

  “Hosanna,” said Lucy.

  “There aire a few local people with motors, however, who will hire their services. Shall I try to arrange something for you?”

  “Please,” said Wing. Lucy fought down the impulse to ask what it would cost.

  “It may take some time,” said the clerk. “If you’d like to return to your rooms, I can ring you up when your man arrives.”