William Boyd - Stars and bars

“England.”

She gave a little shy chuckle. “You know, I’m trying but I just can’t make out what you say. You know, it just sorta sounds like ‘Mn, aw, tks, ee, cd, ah, euh’ to me. Sorry,” she shrugged.

“Can I?” He did his telephone mime.

“Oh sure. Go ahead.”

He called Irene, collect.

“Will you accept a collect call from Henderson Dores, Luxora Beach—”

“No I will not.” The phone went down.

“Not at home?”Shanda asked.

“No.”

“Did Freeborn ever tell you that I was fourth alternate in the Miss Teenage South Carolina pageant?”

“No.”

“Well, I was. It was last year. We were married then but he told me to enter for it all the same; you know, under my own name? I’ll be twenty next month so I guess it was my last shot. And, well…” she patted her belly.

She pointed to a large silver column on top of the television set. It looked like a scale model of an elaborate cenotaph. Politely, he inspected it. ‘Shanda McNab’ it said, ‘Fourth alternate’. Once on his feet he considered he could decently leave. Shanda brushed past him to open the door. She already smelt sweet and farinaceous — of milk and talcum powder — he thought.

“Use the phone any time,” she said. “It’s nice to talk. I don’t get many visitors coming by. And that Cora, well, you can’t talk with her.”

“Thank you,” Henderson said. “Bye for now.”

He noticed the increasing heat of the day and the undisturbed blueness of the sky as he crossed the drive to get a better view of the house. But then as he walked by his car he saw to his astonishment that one of its front wheels was missing, the axle resting on a pile of bricks. He felt a sudden shock and outrage, followed by disquiet — like a householder opening his front door to discover his home burgled and vandalized. Who? How? Why? Questions yammered again in his brain. Of the three cars and a pickup that had been parked outside the house the night before only one — a particularly large dusty green monster, the colour and patina of a battle-scarred tin helmet — remained. He told himself to calm down. There was doubtless some perfectly innocent explanation. He probably had a puncture and one of the household had thoughtfully removed the tyre to get it repaired. It couldn’t be any plot to immobilize him…He laughed scornfully — out loud — at the suggestion. The noise of his laugh sounded pretentious and hollow. There was, he realized, one sure way to find out. He opened the boot. His spare tyre was there. He could change it any time he wanted. He felt relief slither down his spine to weaken his knees.

However, he couldn’t be bothered changing his tyre now. Too hot. He walked out into the middle of the grass circle ringed by the drive and looked back at the Gage mansion.

It was an old solid-looking wood and brick plantation house, with none of the pseudo-Grecian elegance of those usually featured in tourist brochures or films about the Civil War. The ground floor was set on a semi-raised basement and was reached by wide steps which gave on to the two tiered encircling porch supported, on the ground floor, by double stuccoed-brick columns. The split-shingled pavilion roof, with a steep hip, formed a cover for the upper gallery, the roof slope supported here by unembellished wooden colonettes. Four small brick chimneys were grouped at the centre. It was a fine, nicely proportioned house, derived in the main from the French Colonial style, he saw. At some stage its woodwork had been painted green but wind, rain and time had rendered this down to a flaky lichenous mixture of sludge-greys and browns. It was in need of some care and attention, but had it been in the most gleaming pristine condition it could have done nothing to counteract the awful proximity of Freeborn’s mobile home, parked a mere six or seven yards from the front steps. The large number of dirty motor vehicles usually nosing at its sides didn’t help either. It was like some old broken-down sow giving suck to an assorted metallic farrow. Neglect and indifference were all it seemed to evoke; few traces of its romantic past lingered in the air.

The small park it was set in was better tended. The coarse tough grass had been cut back to ankle height. The scattered trees were tall and in fine leaf. From his bedroom window that morning he had looked out onto a garden at the back of the house, wild and overgrown and in riotous flower, the gravelled paths and their low box hedges almost obscured by the profusion and fecundity.

He walked round the side of the house. From here he could see the clapboard extension built onto the back which, he imagined, composed Alma-May’s annexe. He pushed open an askew wicker gate in the tangled hedge that marked the garden boundary and made his way with difficulty along a path to emerge at a small square of lawn. Here the grass was knee high and alive with butterflies. He picked a flower from a nearby shrub and smelt it. Sweet and musky: redolent of Shanda.

He looked up at the rear elevation of the house. A smaller set of steps led down from the porch to the garden. Because of the wide porch and gallery and the overhang of the roof it was hard to gain an accurate idea of the house’s size: just how many rooms it had and how they were laid out within the basic rectangle of the design. He started counting windows on the upper storey. Eight. He thought he saw someone move behind one of them but then he couldn’t be sure. A minute later he heard the sound of a car starting and then driving away. Shanda? Alma-May? Cora?

He went up the back steps and tried the back door. Locked. He followed the porch round to the front door. Some of the windows he passed were firmly shuttered and he wondered if the rooms behind them held the Gage collection.

He walked into the hall. The house was quiet and felt empty. He wandered around the ground floor, peering into rooms he hadn’t visited. There was a large dining room, a ‘den’ with a dust-mantled ping-pong table, another reception room with all the furniture shrouded in sheets, with the exception of a large grand piano. Such paintings as were on the walls were framed prints, family portraits or water-colours by patent amateurs.

He went quietly upstairs. He paused at the top checking for noise. Nothing. He put his hands in his pockets and hummed tunelessly to himself, wondering if he really should be prowling around in this way. To his right ran a corridor off which were Duane’s, Bryant’s and his rooms. He turned left. He opened a door and looked in. An utterly characterless bedroom with scattered clothes and an unmade bed. On a chest of drawers stood a sizeable component from an internal combustion engine. Beckman’s room? Other doors revealed a large walk-in closet heaped with folded sheets and towels, a bathroom and another room, entirely empty. The corridor led him round a corner. Two doors were set on either side of the passage which came to an end at a casement window overlooking the back garden.

He tried one door. It was locked. So too was the one adjacent. He tried a door on the other side. It swung open. The room was dark, the curtains were drawn, and no lights were on. He stood poised in the doorway for a moment, listening. Not a sound. He saw a small sitting room with some old leather armchairs. There was a strong smell of stale cigarette smoke. Were these Gage’s rooms? Or Beckman’s? Through ajar double doors in one wall he could make out a single bed. There was a gleaming aluminium stereo set placed on some shelves amidst a rubble of LPs, magazines, newspapers and stacks of books. Some pictures hung on the wall beyond them but the gloom was too intense to make them out. He walked carefully over to them, stepping round the piles of reading matter and scattered records.