William Boyd - Stars and bars

“Mr Gage? Could I make a phone call.”

“I’m afraid I won’t have a telephone in my house. But Freeborn has one in his trailer. He won’t mind.”

“It’s quite all right,” Henderson said. “Hate to disturb him. Not important.”

♦

He sat on wordlessly with Gage and Bryant trying to concentrate on the television. Within minutes he was totally lost, as the programme — a love story, he surmised — elided confusingly with the commercials every two minutes, it seemed. More confusingly, the same people — or astonishing lookalikes, appeared to be acting in both. Soap flakes, shampoo, dog food, then the young couple were meeting in a bar, they seemed happy. They were joined by young happy friends…but that turned out to be an extended beer advertisement. He wondered distractedly if the young woman and the dog had been part of a commercial at all. He tried to recollect the upshot of the scene he had witnessed: was she happy or sad as she walked through the woods with her canine friend? Suddenly a fat man was sitting on the bonnet of a car and making fantastical guarantees. Henderson’s brain reeled. He thought he glimpsed the young lovers again but they were still selling beer. Eventually he saw the credits roll and he knew that it was over, whatever it had been. He hoped they were happy. He sat back exhausted, his brow aching dully from the constant frown he had been wearing.

A woman of incandescent beauty announced that she would read the ‘World and National News’.

“Mrs Nazarine Kilgus, Furse County assessor, announced today that the annual ‘How’s Your Health Fair’ will be held next month at the Olar National Guard Armory in Olar. Mrs Kilgus said that everything would be free, except for an optional blood test which will cost eight dollars.”

An hour later, halfway into a movie — this, Henderson had managed to follow — Gage stood up and switched off the TV.

“Shuteye at the Ranchero Gate,” he announced and rang the bell for Alma-May. She didn’t appear, so Gage himself led them upstairs. He ran briskly up to the top landing and stood there waiting for them.

“Not even out of breath.”

“Most impressive,” Henderson said.

They walked along a passageway towards the rear of the house. As they passed one door they heard rock music thumping away. Gage beat fiercely on this and shouted “Shut that noise up now!” It died away to a muffled throb, like the distant pulse of a generator.

“I loathe and despise that modern music,” Gage said. “Which is why I have the television on so loud. I’d rather mindless babble than that garbage he listens to.”

Gage opened a door. “Bathroom. He, by the way, is Duane, Alma-May’s boy. Beckman sleeps up at the front. Cora and I are opposite you on the other side. Freeborn and Shanda have their trailer. Alma-May has her annexe behind the kitchen.” He paused. “One other thing I should tell you. We’re vegetarians here. So no meat or fish in our diet.”

“Fine,” Henderson nodded.

“Good,” Bryant said.

Bryant was shown to her room and was bidden goodnight.

“Everything OK?” Henderson asked her.

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing, nothing.” He hurried on to his own room. At the door Gage shook his hand solemnly.

“Breakfast is very informal, Mr Dores. Show up when you’ve a mind and help yourself. We’ll talk in the morning.”

Henderson watched him go, wondering if he’d missed his best opportunity to inform on the alarming Freeborn. He felt strange and frightened, suddenly out of his depth. He went into his room and sat down on the bed.

Once, on holiday in the Mediterranean he’d been sailing alone in a dinghy a mile or so away from the beach. Beneath him was bright clear turquoise water, with the odd dark patch of rock or weed sometimes visible on the sand floor a few fathoms below the keel. And then he’d sailed over the edge of the continental shelf, or some great chasm in the sea bed, and the sparkling turquoise had given way to a dense cold inky blue. The little boat sailed on as before, the sun’s heat on his shoulders was unfaltering, but at that instant he had felt like screaming. All those black miles of water beneath him, pale things swimming there. He turned back at once. He had a horrible fear of depths…

He pulled back the coverlet on his bed and noticed with a spasm of irritation that it was unmade. He saw the folded sheets resting on a chair in the corner. This Alma-May person, he reasoned, was clearly some kind of housekeeper so why didn’t she keep house? Angrily he made up the bed. Even without Freeborn’s unprovoked venom he would have needed no encouragement to leave this bizarre household at the earliest opportunity. Tomorrow he and Bryant would check into the nearest hotel — nearest decent hotel — Gage’s objections notwithstanding, and take things from there. At least, also, he’d be obeying the letter of Freeborn’s injunction if not the spirit.

Somewhat composed, he opened the long floor to ceiling windows at one end of the room and saw that a smaller balcony ringed the house on this upper level too. He stepped out, leant against a pillar and gazed at the dark countryside. He could hear Duane’s rock music faintly, carried to him on a gentle breeze, then it stopped suddenly. In the darkness beyond, crickets kept up their monotonous creaking. A big moth fluttered heavily past him and into his lighted bedroom. He leant out and looked up at the sky. The stars were there, reassuringly occupying their ordained places. A line of some half-forgotten poem came into his head. ‘The lines are straight and swift between the stars’ or something. He felt slightly calmer out there in the open beneath their neutral light. He rested his hands on the balcony’s balustrade and breathed deeply, wondering first how soon he could leave the house and second when he could encourage Bryant to return to the Wax grandparents.

He massaged his face. Perhaps the paintings would make the difference. He longed suddenly for the Mulholland, Melhuish office, the comforting bulwarks of his job, his routine, his colleagues. Out here he felt weak and unprotected, alien and unfamiliar. Freeborn had threatened to ‘bust his ass’. Why, for God’s sweet sake? What was he to Freeborn or Freeborn to him?

Panic and fear assailed him once again and he knew too — with a profound weariness — that sleep was out of the question this evening. The long march of the night lay ahead, the tossing and turning, the pillow-punching and posture changing. He sighed, feeling a deep sympathy for himself, and turned back to his room.

The large moth — the size of a wren, it seemed to him — that had fluttered past him on the balcony was now clumsily attacking the ceiling light, casting a leaping giant shadow over the walls and bed. Henderson wondered what to do: whether he could fashion a weapon big enough to deal it a mortal blow or pray it would fly away of its own accord. He was reluctant simply to swat this large and rather magnificent creature. He felt protective about butterflies and moths: they formed a select subclass of insects which he charitably spared from the normal ruthless pogroms he visited on the other members of their kind.

As he stood there impotently the moth settled obligingly on the wall near the ceiling. He stepped on the bed and cautiously pinched its clasped wings between thumb and forefinger. The moth’s legs bicycled vainly in the air as he carried it gingerly to the window giving on to the balcony. But then, somehow, a wing came off and the moth dropped to the floor with a soft thud, its loose wing fluttering down like a leaf to join it moments later.

Henderson felt shocked. The moth flapped and scrabbled uselessly on the wooden floor, turning in tight circles. Henderson imagined a thin moth-scream of horror and pain. Spontaneously, he stood on the damaged insect, hearing a faint crunch — like standing on a biscuit — before kicking the lifeless body out onto the balcony. He felt exhausted. The simplest acts — the most banal necessities and plans — seemed to bring in their train only absurd and trying consequences.