Geoff Dyer - The Search

Despite everything Rachel had told him it was difficult to form an impression of Malory from the evidence of his home. There was furniture, a few records, books — not enough of either to suggest any passion for music or reading. There were a few pictures on the walls, none of which he paid much attention to — except for a framed Victorian photograph. It was of a man sitting in a chair, wearing a heavy sepia suit, eyeglasses. Walker wondered who it was and moved closer to read the small caption in the right-hand corner: ‘Unknown Self-portrait’. Walker stepped back and gazed at the face of this strange ghost, captivated by the closed logic of the picture. Who was he? A man who looked like this. . But who was he?

Walker moved away from the sad old photograph and went round the rest of the house. It was a place dominated by the absence of everything except light and places to sit or move around. In the study he went through Malory’s files and desk. Rachel had said that if he was away his secretary came in once a week to take care of all his personal affairs, and in a desk drawer he found credit card statements and bills. From these he was able to trace his movements up until three months ago; since then there was nothing. The last payment was to a car rental firm in Durban. Walker made a note of the company’s name and went round the house once more. No flowers or ornaments, only the vista windows looking out over the ocean heaving silently.

Back at his own apartment he called the rental company and asked if they had any information about a car rented three months ago by –

The woman cut him off there and said she couldn’t possibly deal with queries like that on the phone. As soon as he put the phone down it rang beneath his hand: Rachel. Her voice.

‘Did you find out anything?’

‘Not really. What about this secretary — could I speak to her?’

‘No point at all. She’s been with him for fifteen years. He likes her because she never asks any questions. He won’t have told her anything about where he is. Like I told you, he’s a very secretive man. Pathological. You almost had to use the Freedom of Information Act to get his birthday out of him.’

‘Yes.’

‘So what will you do next?’

‘I suppose I’d better start looking for him.’

‘Meaning?’

‘The only lead we have is that rental firm. I guess I’ll head to Durban.’

‘When will you leave?’

‘As soon as I can.’

‘But I’ll see you before you go?’

‘I hope so,’ he said.

They met later that night, in a bar with candles and no music. Walker ordered beer, bought one for a guy he knew who was sitting at the bar. Rachel drank red wine that looked thick and sleepy in the candlelight. In the curved darkness of her glass Walker saw a reflection of both their faces, dancing, swaying, settled. She handed him the documents that she needed Malory to sign. Walker glanced through them.

‘About money,’ Rachel said.

‘We can take care of that when I get back.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘The money is no problem.’

Rachel finished her wine. ‘Let’s pay and go down to the sea,’ she said.

They walked to the beach, listening to the crash of waves. In places the receding tide had left still pools of water that reflected the stars so perfectly it seemed they were breaks of clear sky in a beach of cloud. Jumping across them was like leaping over the sky itself. Every now and then headlights from the coast road probed out to sea. In the distance they could see the hazy spars of the Bay Bridge. Clouds slipped past a moon that was barely there. They threw a few stones into the sea, listening out for the faint splashes. A ship’s lights blinked in the middle of the darkness and then disappeared.

‘And nothing is but what is not,’ said Rachel.

‘Was that a quote?’

‘Shakespeare. I forget which one.’

‘William probably,’ said Walker.

They sat and waited, looking out at the dark ocean. Rachel said she should be getting back. Walker turned towards her.

‘I have a present for you,’ she said. ‘Here.’ She held out her fist and dropped a thin silver chain into Walker’s palm.

‘Maybe it will bring you luck,’ she said. ‘Keep you safe.’ Walker remembered a comic strip he had read as a kid: ‘Kelly’s Eye’. As long as Kelly wore this jewel around his neck he was indestructible. Each week ended with him walking out of an incredible explosion or twenty-car smash-up, naked except for the stone around his neck and a tattered pair of shorts which were also indestructible.

‘Let me put it on for you.’

Walker bent his head and felt her arms reach around his neck, fiddling with the clasp. Her mouth was near his. This was the moment when they could have kissed but it passed.

‘Do you like it?’

‘Yes. Sorry, I never know what to say when I’m given a present.’

She smiled — ‘Let’s get going’ — and they began making their way back up the low cliff to her car.

‘There’s something else as well,’ she said when she had unlocked the car door. She reached over to the passenger seat and handed Walker an envelope. In it was the photo that had been taken at the party. Or part of it anyway: it had been cut in two and the half he held showed Rachel, almost in profile, holding the wine glass in both hands as if she were praying.

‘To remind me you exist?’ Walker said.

‘Maybe.’

‘What about the other half?’

‘I keep that. To remind me that you do,’ she said. ‘Can I give you a lift?’

‘No. It’s five minutes from here, that’s all.’

They were both eager to be on their own now, wanting the leaving to be over with, knowing that everything between them would have to wait.

‘Is there anything else I can do?’ Rachel said finally, standing by the open door of the car.

‘No. I’ll call you.’

‘Be careful, won’t you?’

Walker said yes, yes he would. He watched her drive off and waited for the tail lights to disappear from sight before heading home himself.

It was a three-day drive to Durban and Walker set off the next day. He crossed the Bay Bridge and headed up the coast. He had just passed Malory’s house when a white mist rolled in from the sea, enveloping the road. He slowed to a crawl, winding down the window and feeling the air clinging damp to his skin. The mist thinned and he looked out at a zinc sky, pale sea rolling calmly on to white sand, grey-white gulls dotting the beach. When the mist closed in again, all he could see was the lighthouse glow of cars heading towards him.

He turned inland ten miles later and the mist cleared, the landscape becoming gradually flatter. That night he slept for a few hours in the car before pressing on, stopping only for food and gas. At first he listened to music continuously, but soon the radio began to irritate him and he drove in silence.

By now the landscape was flat and featureless, almost an abstraction, existing only as distance. A hundred years ago there had been no road, only emptiness; now there was a four-lane freeway but the road altered nothing, not the sky yawning over it or the land stretching away to the horizon. It occurred to him that horizontal was derived from horizon. Where words came from, where they were going: horizon. If walking was a form of thinking, then driving was a form of meditation or self-hypnosis which, instead of concentrating the mind, encouraged it to float. The residue of concentration required to keep the car on the road lent these drifting thoughts a sense of urgentless purpose.

Often, glancing in the driving mirror, he expected to see Rachel’s face looking back at him.

He spent the second night in a motel and arrived in Durban late the following afternoon. The rental agency was on the edge of town. It felt strange, walking in after so long bent up in the car. There were no other customers and the man he spoke to had no objection to finding out about the car rented three months ago by Malory. He rifled through a filing cabinet, squinting through glasses that seemed to do his eyes no good at all, and came back with a sheaf of photocopied papers.