Quintin Jardine - On Honeymoon With Death

‘How’s she handling it?’

‘You know my sister; she was terrified at first. But she’s not so bad now; once we had the diagnosis and prognosis she got a hold of herself. Christ, Miles is worse than she is; it’s his first child too, and the way he’s acting you’d think he was going to have it himself.’

So that was it. I had my orders from the boss. . from both my bosses in fact, Prim and Miles.

The trouble was, I am still a high-handicapper at the acting game and, like all high-handicappers, there’s a limit to the amount of time I can usefully spend on the practice range without a pro around to take my game forward. However, we were talking big money, and a lot of responsibility, so I was responsible about it. From the day the script arrived, I had committed myself to starting work on it at nine thirty every morning. Apart from a day or two over the holiday period, I had managed it too; yet, invariably, I was wasted by midday.

It was the same on the day the family went home; only it wasn’t.

There have been times in my life when being alone has been my natural state. A flatmate does not count as a companion, especially not when he’s a green iguana named Wallace.

I’m not talking about being lonely; loneliness is something completely different. It’s possible to be lonely in a room full of people you love. There have even been times, intimate times, when I’ve been with Prim and yet I’ve been swept by a feeling of loneliness. Mind you, it doesn’t do to let it show.

This was different, though; it was the first time that Prim and I had been apart since the night before our wedding, when she had followed established bride protocol by sleeping at her parents’ place, and I. . Ah, now that is, most definitely, another story, and one which she’ll never know.

It was different also in that I was on my own in Villa Bernabeu.

Until that point, the moment when my brain cried, ‘Enough!’ and I put my script away for the day, I had never felt the slightest unease about our new home. You may have thought that, at the time, I was a shade blase about the stiff in the swimming pool, but my life leading up to that point had been so bizarre that when it happened, I dealt with it as just another occurrence. Since I met Primavera Phillips, I’ve seen a few dead people; my first wife among them. I’ve even seen one or two of them being killed, close up.

Since I met Prim. . Only now she was gone and, as I stood on the terrace and peered into the pool, I felt a slight shiver and imagined for a second that I saw something on the bottom. I turned and looked up at the villa, and had the distinctly deranged impression that it was looking back at me.

I can say honestly that I don’t remember ever having panicked in my life. I did faint once, but I had an excuse. No, I’ve had a few scrapes and a few scares, but I’ve never bottled out of anything. I came pretty close to it then, though, under the gaze of that bloody house.

Then I thought, This is silly , and pulled myself together. ‘You can take that look off your face right now,’ I barked up at it. And, I’ll swear, it did. I guess that houses are not used to people speaking sharply to them.

I pressed home my advantage. ‘I’ll tell you what’s going to happen to you, pal. Your fucking name’s being changed for a start. Villa Bernabeu, indeed! I’m not even a bloody Real supporter. You’re going to be Casa Nou Camp from now on.’

I knew, as I said it, that I meant it; my friend the iron forger was in for a visit as soon as his holiday was over. I knew also that if being afraid of a house is silly, giving one a loud-voiced bollocking in broad daylight crosses the frontier into the land where the happy whistlers live.

So I went indoors, made myself a coffee, and brought it back out to the terrace. As usual, the sun was shining, and the temperature was in the low teens Celsius, or fifties in old money, as my dad says, so I settled down on a lounger to drink it. As I sipped it, I closed my eyes, feeling the gentle warmth on my face, and, without willing it, began to think about Primavera.

I recalled every detail of the moment that I met her. How she looked as she walked into the hall of her flat, at the end of a two-day journey; tired but not weary, crumpled but not unkempt, without make-up but still beautiful, and with a light in her eye which told me, ‘This woman is different. This is someone to whom things happen.’

Despite an unfortunate incident with a traffic warden, it was indeed lust at first sight, for both of us; I know that now. Before either of us knew it then, we were in over our heads, I more so than she.

Had it not been for the malign influence of S. T. Antichrist, and a couple of his agents, it might have been over almost as soon as it started. I might have been living with Jan and our two point four kids in a nice suburban house in Glasgow, doing my boring job and earning decent if unspectacular money.

If it had worked out that way, I’d have seen Prim as an interlude in my life, that’s all, and I’d have ended up as the happiest man in the world. But there is no such creature; STA won’t allow it. I’m in tune with the German philosopher who believes that some people are temporarily less unfortunate than others, that’s all.

Primavera was there when my happy life went to rat-shit. When I tried to piece things together again, she was there for me too. I didn’t see her as part of the Dark Plan but, as I lay there, I did begin to admit to myself that she had been the easy option, a crutch I had been all too keen to grab and lean on, one that I was leaning on still.

As I lay there thinking, I understood that her departure hadn’t simply thrown me off balance. It had made me realise that I didn’t know any more who Oz Blackstone was, or even whether he was, in his own right. Everything in my restored existence, the winning lottery ticket which had been based on her parents’ birthdays, even this weird new career of mine, this acting game, had come from or through Prim.

Whatever they said after the event, I knew damn well that if Miles Grayson hadn’t happened to be married to her actress sister, no way would he have cast a part-time wrestling announcer and voice-over artist in one of his projects. The fact that his publicity department has orders never to refer to our relationship is proof of that.

‘Will the real Oz Blackstone please stand up,’ I said, aloud once more.

‘Will any Oz Blackstone please stand up,’ a voice replied. I opened my eyes and sat bolt upright.

It was Susie Gantry.

I shook my head and squeezed my eyes shut, expecting that when I opened them again, she’d be gone. But she wasn’t; she stood there, short, trim, tits like racing airships, shown to their best advantage in a red woollen sweater, thrusting out from her fur-lined black leather jacket as it hung open.

I felt disorientated for a moment. I swung off the lounger and pushed myself to my feet. ‘Susie. .’ I heard myself mumbling.

‘Surprise, surprise,’ she chirped, in her slightly nasal Glaswegian accent, oblivious of my confusion. ‘How’s my favourite yuppie, then?’ She swung her bag into a more secure position on her shoulder, stood on her tiptoes, and kissed me on the cheek.

‘Astonished,’ I answered her. ‘What the hell. .?’

Her expression changed, dramatically and suddenly; cheery, chesty Susie turned before my eyes into a wounded robin redbreast. A frown creased her eyes in a way I’d never seen before, and her pretty face fell. ‘Oz, I’m sorry,’ she exclaimed. ‘Have I got it wrong? Yes, I have, haven’t I? But when you and Prim put that note in your Christmas card, with your new address, and said you’d be pleased to see me early in the New Year, I thought I’d just turn up out of the blue, to surprise you, like.’