by Tim Baker
CHAPTER 55
St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat 2014
Arriving in France had been like a fever dream, the afternoon heat at Nice crushing with humidity. I hadn’t slept since the night before last with Evelyn, and even then, we had spent most of our time not sleeping. It took over an hour to get to my hotel in St-Jean, and when I finally arrived I was exhausted but resisted the cool temptation of white sheets striped by the shadows of Italian shutters, and walked down to the nearest beach, Paloma Plage.
The water was cooling and green as jade from the sea grass, the whole scene contained by limestone cliffs enfolding the bay like a huge amphitheatre. A plane flew by, its single prop engine whining high above the shouts of children on the beach as it trailed an aerial banner for a nightclub in Cannes. I swam far out, past swimmers with snorkels and masks and couples kissing on floats; past kayaks and anchored yachts to a great yellow buoy, and watched a three-master sailing by under motor, “The Maltese Falcon”. I Googled her when I got back to the hotel. Three hundred feet. Half a million bucks to charter for a week. A sum so far beyond comprehension I needed to get some more air.
I felt better back outside, especially when I saw a one-man fishing boat returning for the day, keying the still waters with its low, persistent wake. At the end of a curving road was an ancient chapel on a hill, and just below it a cemetery, filled with the sickly scent of datura, the pale closed bells digesting their secrets in silence, their poison hidden deep within thorny kernels.
I ate on a terrace in the main square, watching swallows riot around the church tower. I’d never been to the Riviera before. Everything felt beautiful and unreal. We can board a plane at night, get off halfway around the world. But we can’t expect to feel the same. It’s not just the difference in season and landscape. Movement changes us. Move too fast and we change in ways we don’t expect. Ways we never knew were possible. I came to France because I was told to; because—let’s face it—I was afraid. Now that I was here, it felt as though I had chosen it myself.
* * *
I wake with a start. For a second I could have sworn someone was in my room. I look out the window. The moon has just come up, simmering crimson and defiant above the waves. How many times do you get to see a moonrise? A sunrise? Like everyone else, I’m locked inside a city, canyoned behind walls and smog and the camouflage of streetlights. When was the last time I bothered to look up at the sky? It was in Mexico, in Ciudad Juárez. But that was a city without stars.
The horror of what happened there still fills my soul with night grief. I have it bad; I can barely breathe from the weight of remorse, especially in the heat of the night. It is more than just fatigue and jet lag. It is as if something has always been wrong with me; as though my timing were off. It is something organic, not environmental. Something deep inside me. Integrated and internal. Not so much a feeling of loss as a sense of displacement. Misplacement. Something is amiss—I’ve always known it. And here, staring at this foreign moon, I think I’ve finally figured it out. It’s easy, really.
I’m just not me.
Never was.
Never will be.
I stare out into the sea. There’s something out there, far out on the horizon, past the blaze of anchored yachts and the drift of green starboard lights. A set of pillars rising from the sea, and just beyond, the mountainous peaks of an enchanted island. I keep losing it, then seeing it again; a fata morgana, the kind of bewitchment that once befell Ulysses. I keep staring until a mist rises, and the apparition disappears.
I drink a half bottle of water, take a piss, wash my face, check that the door is locked and then lie down again. Sleep’s out of the question, but if I’m lucky, I’ll stop thinking . . .
And it’s not until nearly dawn, when the seagulls start their crying, that I not only get lucky, but finally drift away.
* * *
Betty Bannister’s house sits on a hill sheltered by a grove of pines restless in the morning breeze, cicadas already frantic with the heat.
The gate is not even locked.
Music comes from a shaded terrace. Lilting; mournful. Compelling. I walk slowly towards it, passing a stone-clad swimming pool, following a trail of wet footprints evaporating on terra-cotta tiles. There’s a record player sitting on a large terrace shaded by vines, an LP cover lying on the glass top. I pick it up. Tijuana Moods.
‘Charlie Mingus. You must know him?’ Whereas Eva Marlowe’s voice had been liquid and musical, Betty Bannister’s was sculptured and grand. And while Eva had hidden her age behind make-up, jewellery and carefully styled hair, Betty Bannister was natural and strong, standing there clad in a one-piece bathing suit and a hairbrush she was running through her hair. It wasn’t simply that time had been kind to Betty Bannister; compared to her it had been unkind to everyone else. ‘That’s my favourite number, Flamingo.’ She slowly lowers the brush, staring at me. ‘My God, you are so much like your father . . . ’
‘You knew my father?’
‘I didn’t like him, but I knew him.’
I wasn’t expecting that. ‘He was a good man. He tried very hard. He had problems . . . ’ I don’t know whether to keep defending him or not. She just stands there, staring at me. Embarrassed, I put the LP cover down. ‘My father listened to this stuff all the time . . . ’
‘Not you?’
I shrug. ‘It has its moments . . . ’
‘It most certainly does. I’m sorry, can I get you something to drink . . . ?’
I follow her into the house. If there’s anyone else in there, they’re being awfully quiet. ‘It’s a lot cooler inside . . . ’
‘Isn’t it? Italians know how to build for the summer. This all used to be Italy, not that long ago . . . ’ She opens a fridge. ‘Do you like blood oranges?’ Without waiting for an answer, she half-fills two double old-fashioned glasses with freshly-squeezed orange juice, then drops in ice and wedges of scarlet orange. Then she fills the glasses to the brim with Campari, stirring them with a glass swivel stick. She hands one to me. ‘It’s called a Garibaldi.’
‘Really? I nearly wrote a book about Garibaldi once. The grandson.’
‘I know. When you were in Mexico . . . ’
How does she know about Mexico? I sip my drink, waiting for more, but there’s nothing. The drink’s better than good. It’s dangerous. ‘I don’t normally drink in the morning . . . ’
‘Drinking’s like sex. You don’t have to wait until dark to do it.’ She looks at me, her eyes flickering with amusement.
I clink glasses.
She gestures to a leather sofa, taking a silk scarf from the back of a chair and wrapping it around her waist. Opposite is a bay window with a view onto the sea and the cliffs beyond. ‘That’s Italy over there,’ she says. ‘Bordighera. You should visit it.’
‘I thought I saw an island out there last night.’
‘The Island in the Clouds . . . ’ She stares at me, then smiles. ‘You’re lucky,’ she says. ‘You normally only see Corsica in the winter, and even then not everyone can see it. The Corsicans say the island only reveals itself to certain people.’
‘What people are they?’
‘Very good people. Very bad people. And those who are about to die . . . ’
There is a pause as I try to figure out which category I belong to. I change the subject fast. ‘How far is it?’
‘Ten hours under sail in a stiff breeze. I had a friend from there once; not a close friend, but . . . He did his best to help us.’
‘Some people believe a Corsican killed the Kennedys.’
‘You can get into trouble listening to “some people”. Especially when talking about Corsica . . . ’
I wonder what the Corsican word for ‘omertà’ is? Probably omertà. I point to the Maltese Falcon anchored at the other end of the bay. ‘It went right past me yesterday. An amazing ship.’
‘Re
gistered in Malta. Its owner is from Greece . . . ’ That smile again, both mocking and mischievous. ‘Two countries that have had their share of troubles recently . . . And yet you wouldn’t know it, looking at that ship. It seems to be riding out the financial storms quite nicely, doesn’t it? My late husband would have appreciated the irony.’
I gesture to the view. ‘You don’t seem to be doing too badly yourself . . . ’
She puts her glass down on a coffee table. ‘I live here because it’s beautiful. I live here because I love it. And I live here because I can.’
‘All I’m saying is—’
‘You’re just like your father. Trying to humiliate me. There’s something about an independent woman that drives men crazy. I had hoped it would stop when I grew older but . . . ’ She gets up and goes over to a drawer, rifling through papers. She slams the drawer shut. ‘As for my late husband’s fortune, I’ve given most of it away to charity, and the rest will go there too, after my death.’ She hands me a folded piece of paper. ‘Which hopefully won’t be for some time yet. I promised I’d give this to you one day.’
I take the paper. ‘Who did you promise?’
‘A man you don’t know. Philip Hastings.’
‘The killer . . . ?’
She takes a long sip of her drink, watching me. ‘If you had ever known him, you’d never have called him that . . . ’
I open the paper. It’s a State of California Certification of Vital Records birth certificate for Ronald James Bannister. I glance down at the details of the father’s full name. ‘John Fitzgerald Kennedy?’ I scan further. Under Occupation of Father someone has written United States Senator. ‘This can’t be real?’
‘Of course it’s real.’
‘But . . . We would have known.’
‘It depends who we is . . . Of course some people knew. You can’t keep a thing like that hidden for long.’
I read the name of the mother: ‘Elaine Bannister?’
‘My dear, tormented sister had one unforgiveable fault. She just couldn’t tell a lie. Of course when they found out, they had the birth certificate amended. But you’re holding the original in your hands.’
‘Is this why Eva Marlowe sent me here?’
She sits down next to me. ‘I sent for you. When Eva told me you were in Dallas, I knew I couldn’t put it off anymore . . . ’
‘Put what off, Mrs. Bannister?’
‘I hate that name. Call me Betty. I can’t put off telling you the truth anymore . . . ’ There is a ringing in my ears. She places her hand on my arm. ‘Are you all right?’
I feel faint. ‘It’s about my father, about the Bannister case, isn’t it?’
‘That’s right . . . ’
‘The rumours were true, is that what you’re going to tell me? That he was in on the kidnapping?’
She slaps my face. ‘How dare you say that about Nick Alston. He’s the man who saved your life.’
My voice is husked with a rising anger. ‘What then?’
‘It’s about you. Don’t you understand? Nick Alston was not your real father . . . ’
CHAPTER 56
Roosevelt Hotel, Manhattan November 7th, 1963
Hastings only slowed down when he entered the lobby of the Roosevelt. Up until then, everything had been a fusion of fast-paced anxiety and anticipation; the streets and the people on them existing outside of the fevered trajectory of memory. There was only his yearning and his remorse. The one thing that had ever tempered the intensity of his mourning for Susan had been Betty Bannister. It wasn’t alleviated; it was annihilated. Gone the instant her pink Cadillac convertible coasted into the garage, moving from blinding sun to throbbing shade, her green eyes camouflaging the trip wire he was about to stumble against. The look she gave him had been like a cunning knife, slotting its way quickly and effortlessly through the brittle defence of his rib cage, coring straight up into his heart—desire pumping from him like black blood . . .
And Susan’s memory?
Gone, baby, gone.
Mrs. Bannister hadn’t been a love affair, she had been a madness. A contagion. A pandemic of lust. Nothing existed except the next moment with her. Certainly not the ghost of Susan. If she had been watching, what would she have thought? Would Susan have been glad that he had finally been able to find an escape from the suffocation of his guilt? Or would she have been appalled at the ease with which he was able to toss her memory away, like a broken umbrella, as he knowingly walked into the face of the approaching storm?
The grandeur of the lobby—the marble, the ceiling, the glint of bronze and gold; the tick of clocks and tock of high heels and the sight of himself multiplying in unexpected mirrors took him by surprise; brought him back to the reality of New York, not Los Angeles; of autumn, not spring; of 1963, not 1959. Of all the deaths that almanaced the moments in between. Doubt whispered in his ear. What was he doing there? He was like a junkie who had gone cold turkey only to find himself staring yet again at the syringe. Did he really have to do this to himself?
He froze.
Ever since he had hung up the telephone in the bar, he had thought he had come to New York to see her. He had forgotten his mission. He wasn’t there to kill a president; but to save a life—and maybe his own while he was at it.
Like most epiphanies, the realization comes too late, for no sooner does it hit him than he sees Betty Bannister waving from a balcony overlooking the lobby.
Uncertainty ends.
Compulsion begins.
The logic of addiction.
He hurries up the steps, her lips a warm promise of an evening of unfolding delight. The key flashes as they pass a lamp. A lock clicks. A door opens. His cold killer hands move across her body. She sighs, raising her chin the way she always used to, offering her throat to his mouth. Their lips meet. He looks at her eyes. She’s crying. He slowly draws away.
‘What is it?’
‘Sonny called . . . ’ There is a long, deadly pause. ‘He wants Nick Alston’s son back.’
‘Did he say why?’
‘Jack’s dropping LBJ from the ticket and when he’s re-elected, he’s firing Hoover. They’re all afraid this time he’s going to do it. Only the boy can stop him. Maybe not even that. But they want to try.’
‘Alston will never do it.’
‘Of course Nick won’t. Sonny knows that too . . . But he says he has no choice. If he can’t get the boy back, he’s got to join with the rest of them. They’re all going to kill Jack.’
Hastings goes over to the window, gazing out at the thrusting silhouettes of electrified buildings simmering in the night. He makes his decision, turning back to her.
‘Everything’s going to work out fine. Just wait and see . . . We’ll keep the boy safe and save the president. We can do it. Trust me.’
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in Sydney, Tim Baker moved to Italy in his early twenties and lived in Spain before moving to Paris as director of consular operations at the Australian embassy in France. His short fiction has appeared in books published by Random House and William Collins, his non-fiction in books published by Penguin, Time Out, and Facts on File. He currently lives with his wife and son in the south of France.
