Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite!

by Douglas Lindsay

  And there it was, right there, coming back to me, while Jones had excused herself to go to the bathroom. I missed Baggins. I wanted to see my daughter. That was all.

  I couldn't think straight about Brin; it had been so uncomfortable for so long, I found it hard to imagine that she was unhappy not to have had me around.

  I also wondered if she'd been able to collect the insurance money. Would she then have to pay it back when I turned up alive? Would the money already have been spent? Would my return, if it was ever to happen, precipitate a family crisis?

  I'd been so taken aback and put on the defensive by the female agent getting into the taxi that morning, that I hadn't thought to ask anything about the plane crash and about Brin. My life was as it ever had been, getting pushed around from one thing to another.

  Nevertheless, I missed Baggins.

  Jones sat down, immediately reached out and squeezed my hand. The electricity of the touch brought me back at once from my maudlin thoughts.

  'It's great to see you,' she said. 'You chosen yet?'

  The menu lay unopened on the table, where it had been when she left. She shook her head in answer to her own question, then opened the menu, scanned it quickly then gestured with her eyebrows to the waitress who was passing, a tray in each hand.

  'Can we have two grapefruit, papaya, spirulina and acai, a couple of glasses of water, two coffees with milk, and toast, goat's cheese and figs twice?'

  The waitress smiled and nodded. Everyone smiled at Jones. She had that way about her that made people grateful she'd included them in her life. The waitress was heading to the kitchen thinking that, more than likely, Jones could have given any one of the four waitresses her order, but had instead chosen to go specifically to her.

  'You were looking for me last week?' I said.

  'Sure,' she said, nodding. She looked so perfect sitting there, beautiful and interesting, impossibly elegant yet without the slightest bit of effort seeming to have been made. 'I had some things to do. I said I'd get in touch, didn't I?'

  'You're serious?' I said.

  She looked slightly nonplussed.

  'Sure,' she said. 'Why?'

  'That was seventeen years ago.'

  She laughed and her perfect, beautiful teeth showed briefly behind her lips.

  'You weren't waiting all that time were you?'

  'Married with one kid,' I said.

  She nodded, her eyes dropped briefly, the permanent smile and relaxed assuredness seemed to temporarily vanish. Was she hurt? I chided myself, hoping the look wouldn't show on my face. Of course she wasn't hurt. She was never hurt. She was impossible to hurt. If you care about something, you don't disappear for seventeen years.

  'That's nice,' she said. 'I'm pleased for you. What age is your daughter?'

  'Eleven,' I said. Paused. 'How did you know I had a daughter?'

  The smile was back, and she had recovered from her moment of melancholy, just as the script demanded.

  'You look the type,' she said. 'Men like you always have daughters.'

  'Whatever that means,' I said, shaking my head, and she laughed.

  'So, how does your wife feel about you running after me the second you heard I was looking for you? You couldn't have been very popular.'

  There was an impishness in the question, but the look in her eyes demanded an answer.

  'I haven't seen my wife in a while,' I said. 'I don't know, ten months maybe. It's a long story.'

  'Wow,' she said. 'And your daughter?'

  Shook my head.

  She reached out and touched my hand again, squeezing it softly.

  'Jesus, that must be tough,' she said,

  She was instantly so concerned and so caring that it made me feel worse than I had at any time since the plane crash, so many lifetimes ago. Ten months? It could have been ten thousand years. I wanted to cry.

  'Tell me about the movie,' I said quickly.

  'You're not interested in that,' she said, which was extremely perceptive of her, but neither was I interested in talking about me.

  'No, really, tell me. Saw you in Spooks,' I added, and then felt like that was such a stupid, dull thing to have said. I was talking to Jones. I had to be interesting!

  'God, yes, that was a blast. I mean, I didn't get to do much...'

  'You were great,' I said, barely managing to leave the darling! off the end of the sentence. She waved away the compliment, then rolled her eyes in a beautiful, affected manner as she switched to talking about her latest role.

  'Met this Polish chap on a small American movie. I guess we were both out there hoping it would be our big break. Anyway, my hero, such as he is, is big in Poland – don't ask me why – and he's rather been pursuing me since then. Married of course. Just wants me for the sex.'

  She leant her chin in the palm of her hand and looked longingly at me across the table, as if the mere mention of sex took us back to those two days in a small flat in Glasgow. She didn't know that I had never left those two days.

  The waitress placed the coffees and the water on the table.

  'The juices will just be a minute,' she said, and left, bathing once more in Jones's acknowledgement.

  'So, this movie is just some whimsy. Set during the Cold War. 1970s Soviet-era love angst. We get to kiss a lot. Which we do anyway, but you know... he seems happy.'

  She smiled again and lifted the water to her lips. Took the smallest sip. Probably, in fact, didn't take anything at all.

  I'd always wondered. What would I do with time alone with Jones, and Jones in front me as gorgeous and flirtatious as always, and as available as she'd been the last time I'd seen her? And here she was.

  'So, what d'you think?' she asked, as if she knew what I was thinking. As if sensing weakness.

  Sensing weakness? God, weakness oozed from me.

  'About?'

  I knew what she meant. This was her at her magnificent, flirtatious best.

  'You and me. Alone in a city, no attachments. You still find me attractive?'

  'Of course,' I said.

  I wasn't going to get into some sort of denial on that, at least. Yet, right here, I knew it. I knew I wasn't going to be able to do anything. I'd felt so guilty for so long about those last two days, how could I do something now? No matter how much I wanted to, no matter how beautiful she looked and no matter how available she made herself.

  It didn't feel like strength on my part, however.

  'Hmm,' she said. 'You're not sure, are you?' She looked compassionate, as if understanding of my internal, heartbreaking dichotomy, yet at the same time filled with the same longing.

  The waitress appeared with the drinks, two large glasses filled with virulently green, thick juice, placed one each before us and then left with, 'Your food will be ready shortly,' passed lightly in the direction of Jones.

  Jones gave her another one of those smiles, then turned back to me. She leant over the juice, and put her lips round the end of the straw. Took a short sip, then licked her lips in the most discreet and erotic fashion imaginable.

  'We should eat,' she said. 'You can think about it. Where are you staying?'

  'The Hyatt.'

  'I usually like the Hyatt.'

  And so we ate breakfast at Café 6/12.

  *

  'It's all so affected, isn't it?'

  'What d'you mean?' I asked.

  Brin looked at me with those withering eyes; it seemed a while since she'd looked at me in any other way. I still didn't know what I'd done wrong, and all I could think back then was that she'd somehow discovered about me and Jones and those two days, or was able to look inside my head and knew that I still thought about them. That in some ways seventeen years wasn't so long.

  It was a couple of months before I got on that plane and everything changed.

  'This whole coffee thing,' she said. 'This culture that's suddenly appeared in the last ten years in Britain.'

  'I know what you're referring to,' I said, 'but what d'you mean
it's affected?'

  She passed the salad bowl. Baggins was eating a sandwich, arranging crisps on her plate to make a picture. Modern art. If only she'd studied at the Glasgow School of Art, rather than being an eleven year old, then the plate of crisps could have been worth several thousand.

  'You used to be able to go into a café and order a coffee. Now there's fifteen different ways to have coffee. Excuse me, I'd like a Mocha Chocca Frappe Latte Ramalanga Dingdong...'

  Baggins giggled.

  'But you know, it's not just that,' she continued. 'It's the whole thing. It's those ridiculously large coffee machines and the whole damned performance.'

  'You think we should be serving Nescafé?'

  She shook her head. I concentrated on my lunch because I knew the look that would be on her face, and I didn't want to see it. I didn't know what to make of it.

  'You can sell filter coffee without all the performance. Like in American diners where the waitresses walk around with those coffee pots topping people up.'

  'American coffee's rotten,' I said.

  'Not to them,' she said, 'and that's not the point anyway. They have the coffee in those pots that they want, so why don't you just have the coffee in a pot or a flask or whatever that your customers want?'

  'We don't serve at tables,' I said, pushing her pedantically further into the argument. I caught Baggins' eye, then finally glanced at Brin.

  'Fine,' she said. 'Have the, whatever, the flagon of coffee on the counter. Someone asks for a coffee, you pour them a cup of damned coffee, put in a bit of milk, take their money and it's all over in about ten seconds. Job done. Instead you get this whole palaver, this bizarre ritual, with its associated lengthy queues.'

  'It's what the customer wants these days.'

  'And could any of them tell the difference?'

  'Between an Americano and a cappuccino? Yes, I think they could.'

  'Americano,' she said, the word tossed out dismissively. 'Yes, all right, they could tell the difference between a black coffee and something with a bit of froth on it. Coffee connoisseurs, the lot of them. But seriously, pour them a black coffee from a flask, and one from your apocalyptic machines, or a coffee from the flask with a bit of frothed up milk in it against a...' and she made the air quotation marks, 'flat white,' uttering the words with wonderful contempt, 'honestly, how many of them are genuinely going to be able to tell the difference? Sure, you might bet fifty per cent make the correct guess, but that's just the odds. Chances are virtually none of them are going to know what's what. It's affected.'

  I finally held her gaze for a few moments. She was right, of course. I used to think exactly the same thing. It was just something else that had swept in and taken over British culture, like mobile phones and reality TV. However, unlike those other things, the rise of the affected café wasn't a bad thing. People stood in orderly queues, they got their coffee, they sat at tables, probably for longer than they would otherwise, because the coffee had been so long in coming, and they chatted over their affected coffee, which is better than texting or Facebooking or chatting over alcohol.

  I thought all that but didn't say it. These last few months it seemed that with every discussion we had, I engaged for a while, and then very quickly decided that I'd had enough.

  'It's theatre,' said Baggins.

  I smiled, but did no more than glance at her.

  'What is?' asked Brin.

  'People just like a little bit of drama in their lives, even if it is just making a cup of coffee. Maybe it is a bit silly, but isn't there enough bad things in the world that you shouldn't be getting worked up over how people like their coffee served? I think dad's job's brilliant. Look, a face.'

  She turned her plate around. The crisps were ordered so that they resembled a face apparently, although it wasn't immediately evident.

  I caught Brin's eye. Baggins, as usual, had cut through the tension.

  'Been here before,' said Brin, smiling ruefully. 'My mum said it the minute she was born.'

  29

  I lay in bed on a Warsaw afternoon, staring at the ceiling. The curtains were open, the day bright but overcast. I thought about Jones, remembering every moment of the sex we'd had all those years earlier. The positions, the feeling of utter euphoria, the desperation to climax juxtaposed against the desire that it should never end.

  Jones was sensational in bed, although ever since then I'd wondered if all actresses are. They are by their nature very vocal and giving. They have to be. They have to give of themselves on a professional basis. So does that make them automatically giving in bed? Wonderfully loud and expressive, and delivering the right line at the right moment.

  Maybe that was just Jones, or maybe the very thought process was all part of my own lack of confidence. If Jones was fantastic in bed, there had to be some reason other than the fact that I was taking her there. Surely my own performance had been much the same as it was with Brin, and Brin never seemed anything like as moved as Jones.

  We'd ended up having the meat of the conversation, standing on the steps outside 6/12, as I held onto Jones's presence, wanting to invite her back to my room, and knowing that I wouldn't.

  She walked out into the afternoon, a light song on her lips, an indistinct melody, sounding like something Audrey Hepburn would have sung on the steps of a chic café.

  'How long are you going to be in Warsaw?' I asked.

  She was looking over her shoulder. I knew I'd lost her, for now at any rate.

  'Oh, a few days. Hey, it's the movies, anything can happen.'

  I didn't want to talk about the Jigsaw Man, but I had avoided it through lunch, and I wasn't going to be able to go on avoiding it. I had a feeling that the mention of him would be enough to snap the moment, but since the moment was about to get into a taxi, it didn't seem to matter. I didn't want to ruin the chances of seeing her again, yet at some point she would disappear and I'd likely not see her again for seventeen years, so I had to say something, whether I liked the thought of it or not.

  The words stuck in my throat.

  'You're looking for the Jigsaw Man,' she said suddenly.

  'Yes.'

  She didn't say anything else. She'd started the conversation for me, but didn't sound like she wanted to contribute anything to it beyond that.

  'I spoke to the others, but they didn't seem to know.'

  'No,' she said. 'They wouldn't.'

  'Why?'

  'They were the bit parts,' she said. 'What they did, didn't really matter. They were George and Ringo. It was you and I who were John and Paul.'

  I glanced at her, but her eyes were still looking around for a taxi.

  'George did some...' I began.

  'And so did Henderson. But it wasn't about them. The Beatles happened because of John and Paul. The whole thing, Beatlemania, all those huge number ones, they were about John and Paul. George came into his own towards the end, but that was just decoration on the last couple of albums.'

  She paused. I tried to remember if Jones had ever talked about the Beatles before. I didn't remember her being a fan, or even showing the slightest interest.

  'You and I were John and Paul,' she repeated.

  'We never fell out.'

  She didn't immediately say anything. We never fell out. We'd never argued in our lives. Yet we did go long periods without seeing each other.

  'No,' she said eventually.

  'So, who was the Jigsaw Man, then? If we were John and Paul...'

  Her face betrayed the slightest hint of sadness, as though the director had asked for a look of wistfulness stopping short of melancholy.

  'I'm going to have to go, sorry,' she said.

  The word sorry implied some sort of apology, although I couldn't remember Jones ever apologising for anything before, and I didn't think she was really apologising now.

  'Will I see you again?' I asked, immediately regretting the tone of desperation. It sounded so weak. It was weak.

  A taxi stopped, right on c
ue. Jones took a step or two towards it, to let him know that she was coming, then turned back.

  She stared curiously for a moment, and then, with a tone that was all naïve innocence, said, 'Because you need to find the Jigsaw Man?'

  I didn't know what to say to that. Yes, I needed to find the Jigsaw Man, but no, I wanted to see her again, even though I was letting her go, rather than escorting her back to my hotel bedroom.

  She smiled, switching at a snap of the fingers.

  'Well, of course you'll see me again,' she said. 'Look, I need to go. We'll talk about the Jigsaw Man later.'

  If she'd stood there long enough, by God I really would have asked her when, in some desperate, small voice, but she followed the words with a quick smile, a theatrical wave, and then, just for a moment, she was naked, standing there on the steps outside the café, letting me see what I was missing, what I had turned my back on, and then the moment was gone, her back was turned and she was getting into the taxi.

  As it drove away, she leaned forward, speaking to the driver, and I was left staring at the back of her head as the car turned the corner at the end of the block. The pain of her leaving, of having her slip through my fingers like that, settled upon me and crushed me, for all the world like it was a giant, Pythonesque foot.

  I stared at the space where she'd been for a while, then started walking back along to the hotel. I felt so useless, so wretched, so consumed by desire for Jones. How pathetic. I didn't feel like walking through the park again, so I went back to the room, undressed and got into bed.

  I woke up some time later to complete stillness. Felt like I'd been out for a long time, and although it was still light outside, the quality of the day was completely different, the afternoon having progressed considerably.

  I felt disorientated, even though I knew where I was. I had a peculiar feeling that someone was in the room with me. Had Jones come back? For a second I couldn't remember, but of course she hadn't. Maybe it was the female agent, maybe that was how they knew everything about me. They were following me this closely.

  I pushed the sheets off and went to check the bathroom. I looked into the darkened empty space, and then turned back to the room. I didn't need to check my watch. It was several hours later.