William Boyd - Stars and bars

“MR DORES AIN’T FEELIN’ SO GOOD, JOY!”

“Did you sleep last night, Mr Dores?”

Henderson had confessed his insomnia in week one.

“No, not very well.”

“MR DORES DIN’T SLEEP LAST NIGHT, JOY!”

“THAT’S TOO BAD. SORRY TO HEAR THAT, MR DORES!”

“Looks like Joy din’t get too much sleepin’ done neither.” Ike’s left leg gave way and he dug his elbow into his hip.

“TWO EGGS OVER, BACON, TOASTED BAGEL,” Joy bellowed from the recesses.

Two eggs hit the skillet as she spoke, a bagel slammed into a toaster, rashers fizzed under a grill.

“Martha wisht she could be kep awake nights. Right, Martha?”

“Not by you, that’s for sure.”

High-pitched wheezing from Ike.

“What’s it gonna be this morning, Mr Dores?”

Henderson thought. “Poach one, scramble one on lightly toasted rye. Three rashers of bacon — burned — um, cottage fries. Orange juice and a toasted English, one side only.”

“POACH ONE, SCRAMBLE ONE ON PALE RYE. CREMATE THE BACON, THREE. FRIES. TOASTED ENGLISH, ONE SIDE ONLY.”

“Actually, could you make that poach two, no toast, hold the fries, some bacon and a bagel and lox?”

“IKE, MAKE THAT LAST ONE POACH TWO, NO TOAST, HOLD THE FRIES, BAGEL AND LOX.”

Henderson smiled with guilty satisfaction. He had been trying for days to concoct an order that would thwart Ike’s astonishing memory and co-ordination. This was anew and unfair ploy, changing the order after it had been delivered.

“You comin’ out wit me tonight, Martha?” Ike asked over his shoulder.

“Not if you was the last man in the world!”

Ike ran on the spot for five seconds.

“SCRAMBLE ONE ON A MUFFIN, TO GO. TWO EGGS UP, CREMATE THE BACON!” Joy boomed.

Henderson tensed. Three orders at once, Ike and Martha were still shouting at each other. The juice came. About — it seemed — thirty seconds later his eggs were in front of him. Two poached, three perfect crisp rashers, a bagel and lox. He sighed and looked up. Ike was drinking ice-water.

“Don’t get a breakfast like that in England, do you, Mr Dores?” Martha asked.

Henderson had to concede the rightness of this remark. The last time he’d ordered a cooked breakfast in England, the egg yolk nestled in a halo of transparent albumen, the grease in the fried bread furred up his palate for several hours and he had been unable to remove the bark-like rind from the floppy bacon.

The thought of England subdued him. He ate his breakfast quickly, silently resolving to make his peace with Irene before he picked up his hired car. Perhaps she could fly down and meet him later? He’d suggest it to her, make up some story about a colleague coming in the car at the last moment.

Outside, he stood for a while on the pavement. The sun shone, but it was cooler today after the rain. He breathed deeply, flexed his shoulders and summoned a cab from the slow moving stream of traffic. He got in and sat back on the wide seat. He was beginning to feel slightly better. The city in the morning always had that effect on him. The cab took him smoothly across town to Irene’s apartment on the upper west side.

Once there, he paced up and down for a moment or two rehearsing his apology before attempting to step into the lobby. Irene’s apartment was in an old brownstone that had been extensively renovated inside. There were heavy plate-glass doors at the entrance, through which he could see an expanse of tiled flooring leading to a stainless steel lift. A small man sat at a kind of lectern to one side.

The heavy glass doors would not open. Henderson pressed the buzzer beneath a loudspeaker on a slim pedestal.

“Yeah?” The little man spoke into a microphone at the side of a lectern.

“I’ve come to see Ms Irene Stien.”

“She expecting you?”

“Well not exactly…”

“Name?”

“Dores.”

The man pressed some buttons on the console in front of him and spoke — inaudibly to Henderson — into the microphone.

“She’s not in.”

Henderson pressed the entryphone button again. He detested these machines.

“Could I speak to her, please?”

The little man ignored him. Henderson rapped loudly on the thick glass, hurting his knuckles. Wearily, the man got off his stool and approached the doors. Henderson recognized him. A small Slavonic-looking fellow with a waxy, heavily-pored skin. He had one of the most negligible foreheads Henderson had ever seen: his hairline began an inch above his eyebrows. On his nylon blazer was pinned a badge. “A. BRA.” This was Adolf Bra, Irene’s doorman.

By leaning his weight against one door a half-inch gap could be created. Bra approached.

“Could I speak with Ms Stien,” Henderson repeated firmly. Speak ‘with’, he thought. Good God.

“Ms Stien is not within her domicile.”

For some reason this pedantry made Henderson even angrier.

“Did you learn that at doorman school? Look, you know me. And I saw you speaking to her, for Christ’s sake. I just want a word.”

Bra looked at his fingers. With the edge of one thumbnail he slid something from beneath the other.

“I told you. Ms Stien is not within—”

“Her domicile. I know.” Henderson forced a smile. “I don’t believe you. I’m a friend of Ms Stien. If you can’t let me speak to her I shall report you to—” he couldn’t think to whom. “I shall report you.”

Bra waggled his forefinger and leant towards the gap. Reflexively, Henderson did the same.

“Go suck your cock,” Bra breathed. His breath had a pungent, pickled odour, as if he lived exclusively on a diet of capers.

Henderson recoiled, too surprised and nauseated to retort. If he had had his sabre he would have driven it through the gap in the door and skewered Bra’s narrow body.

“You’ll regret this!” he shouted. He should have sworn as colourfully back at him, he realized seconds later, but he felt he had already made something of a fool of himself, a capital crime in the Englishman’s book. Reverting to type, he gathered what he could of his dignity around him and smiled pityingly at Bra, now back behind his lectern. Common little man, he said to himself. Serf. Nation of peasants, what do you expect? Diet of turnips and liverwurst. Vitamin deficiency, rickets, inbreeding. Subnormal, subhuman…He checked himself, feeling suddenly ashamed. He’d have him in the gas chambers next. The man was only doing his job — albeit uncourteously — there was no need for such poisonous hatred.

He walked up the street until he found a phone, inserted a dime and prodded out Irene’s number.

“Hi there, this is Irene. I’m really sorry I’m not in right now—”

Answering machine. It was like trying to see the President.

“—promise I’ll get back to you. Beeee .”

Henderson wanted to say he was sorry, explain everything, categorize his emotions.

“Irene. This is Henderson…I’ll phone tomorrow.” He hung up. His voice had sounded stilted, pompous. She’d never phone back someone who spoke like that…He stood alone on the street, balked, frustrated, all his good intentions stymied and snookered. What more could he do? There was nothing for it but to hire the car, collect Bryant and head south.

Henderson hired his car. He had asked for a medium-sized model, yet what he got was bigger than anything on the roads in Britain. The girl at the rental agency assured him that this was the standard size. They had larger cars if he wanted one. He said no.

In the car the bonnet seemed to stretch ahead like the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. He slotted the gear into ‘drive’, touched the accelerator and the car pulled strongly away. He couldn’t hear the noise of the engine. The power steering, he discovered, allowed him to manoeuvre with two fingers. The thought of barrelling down the freeways in this behemoth suddenly sent a tremor of boyish excitement through his body, displacing his gloom and disappointment. God, this is fun , he thought as he surged up the ramp from the underground car park, it’s like some sort of massive toy.