William Boyd - Stars and bars

“It could be worse,” friendly Henderson said. “It’s snowing in England.”

The taxi-marshal looked round, the whites of his eyes were yellow like butter.

“Fuck England,” he said.

Henderson nodded. “Fuck England,” he agreed, nodding. “You bet.”

It had been an epiphanic moment, he now thought, as he waited at a traffic light to cross to the west side of Park Avenue. An omen. The traffic stopped and he hurried to the island, paused, and crossed again. He had pondered on it a long time and he had come to confer on his departure from England an importance which the ostensible and unremarkable business reasons wouldn’t at first seem to warrant. He was going to a job in New York — granted — but he was also making an escape. An escape from the past and from himself.

He strode on more speedily, the aluminium guards on his sabres clinking dully together as the bag banged against his thigh.

He had quit Britain, he had decided, in a conscious and deliberate flight from shyness, in a determined escape from timidity…A man on roller skates glided silently by him and leant sinuously through the crowd. Henderson’s admiration was immediate. “ Enjoy your skate! ” he wanted to shout after him, but he didn’t. Why not? Because he was shy.

He was (he categorized himself with no trace of self-pity) a shy man. Not chronically shy — he didn’t stammer or spit or flinch or sweat in the manner of the worst afflicted — no, he was shy in the way most of his countrymen were shy. His flaw was a congenital one: latent, deep, ever present. It was like having a birthmark or a dormant illness; an ethnic trait, a racial configuration.

He stepped into shade cast by a tall building and gave a shiver from the sudden chill. Sunny start, rain later, the forecast had said. He had only his raincoat today, trusting the jovial forecaster. Perhaps that was a little foolhardy. He overtook two young men, strolling, talking loudly, one smoking a lime-green cigar. He screwed up his eyes as he walked through a slate-blue cloud of smoke, smelling the vomit-smell of cigars, souring the crispness of the morning.

Shy.

True, his education and his upbringing provided him with a reasonably efficient kit of tools and methods to overcome his disability. Observe him nattering at a cocktail party; see him engage his dull partner at a dinner table with conversation and one would never guess the nature of his disease. But it was there, and beneath this socio-cultural veneer he suffered from all the siblings of shyness too: the feeble air of confidence, the formulaic self-possession, a conditioned wariness of emotional display, a distrust of spontaneity, a dread fear of attracting attention, an almost irrepressible urge to conform…

He briskly turned the corner off Park, lurched and just skittered round three raw shiny steaming turds, freshly deposited in the rough environs of a sapling root. He overtook the fur-clad crone and her nasty pooch. He shot her a hostile, stern glance brimming with reproach. He longed to demand where her poop-scoop was or at least make some withering rejoinder. Only last week he’d heard of a man in the city who, confronted with the sight of a splay-legged great dane dumping its load in front of him, had removed a gun from his jacket and shot the beast there and then. A very, intrinsically American act that, he thought, as he made his way down the street towards his office. A disapproving look, a tut-tut tightening of the lips, that was the best he could manage. It was typical and it was what was wrong. And that was why he had to leave, why he had to come to America for the cure. Because, here, shyness was banned; shyness was outlawed, prohibited.

That of course was nonsense, he realized, as he steered round a postman pushing his trolley. There were plenty of shy people in America, but they were shy in a different way, it seemed, their insecurity had a different stamp to it. And if he had to be shy all his life, then he wanted to be shy like them.

He paused at the door of Mulholland, Melhuish, Fine Art Auctioneers. Brave talk, he said with heavy irony, fine words. The only problem was he kept relapsing. He had been making real progress: look at Melissa, look at Irene. But he kept falling back. Consider the run-in with the madman a few minutes ago; he had handled that appallingly.

He stepped into the entrance hall, black and white marble squares, oak panelling.

“Good morning, Mr Dores. How are you today?” the receptionist called from behind her desk.

Henderson, on his way past, smiled automatically then stopped. That was not the way.

“I’m very well, thank you, Mary. Very well indeed. Thank you for asking.”

“Oh…Oh. Good. You’re welcome.”

He entered the small lift. Elevator. He pressed ‘Door closed’. They slid to, trapping someone’s pale blue arm.

“ Yawks! Agh!”

He punched ‘Door open’ and Pruitt Halfacre stepped in.

“Didn’t you see me, Henderson? Jesus.”

“Sorry, Pruitt. Miles away.”

“Jesus, God. That’s oil .” Halfacre examined his crushed sleeve. “I’m going to have to charge you, Henderson.”

Was he joking or was he being serious? Henderson could never tell with Americans. He smoothed his eyebrows. They ascended.

“Wonderful news, don’t you think? At last, at last,” Halfacre said.

“What?”

“You haven’t heard? We think we may have an Impressionist sale. A chance at one anyway.”

“Good God!”

“Yeah. Tom has the details.”

They stepped out of the lift onto the fourth floor. After the plush of the lobby here was scarred paintwork, bright lights, worn linoleum.

“Morning, Ian,” Halfacre said.

“Snap,” said Toothe. He and Halfacre were both wearing bow ties.

“Great minds, Ian.”

“Bit on the late side, Henderson?” Toothe said. “Naughty. You look very hot and bothered.” Toothe was English, an English version of Halfacre. Two sensitifs of the worst kind. Henderson forgave Halfacre because he was American, but, to be honest, he disliked Toothe intensely.

“It’s that haul up from the flat. Apartment,” he said apologetically.

“Getting old.”

“Death where is thy sting,” Half acre said. Teethe laughed.

Henderson laughed too, waved gaily and left them in the corridor. He walked to his office, suddenly feeling angry. Getting old. Thirty-nine wasn’t old. Impudent little sod. And who was he to clock-watch? Bastard. Forty on the horizon. Prime of life…But, then again, there were these disturbing things happening to his body. His eyebrows, his nipples, his shins, his arse. Ass.

As he approached his office door it opened.

“Oh.”

“Hello.” He greeted Kimberly, the immaculate Kimberly, his secretary. Eighteen going on thirty. The hair, the skin, the nails, the eyes, the clothes. Everything looked new, just on. Very spic, very span. In strong contrast to him.

“What are you doing here, sir?”

“Sorry?”

“The ten o’clock flight to Boston? The man with the Winslow Homers?”

“Oh Jesus.” Henderson remembered. “Oh, look, phone him up and postpone. Tell him I’m ill. I’ll come tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow’s Saturday.”

“Monday, then. God,” he rubbed his eyes. “I overslept. Clean forgot. Sorry Kimberly.”

“There are messages.”

“Already?” He looked at his watch. Nine forty-five.

“A Ms Dusseldorf and Mrs Wax.”

“Fine.”

Kimberly left. Henderson propped his sabres behind the door and sat down. He could see a section of Central Park through his window. The plane trees were just coming into leaf; the sun on the smooth hillocks made it look vernal and fresh.

Ms Dusseldorf. That was Irene. It was a code he insisted on: she had to use a pseudonym — a city — whenever she phoned. The last time it had been Pnom Penh.