William Boyd - Stars and bars

“Pleasant evening,” he said.

“Is it?”

“Well, yes. The weather—”

“Oh, it’s the weather you’re talking about. Of course, the weather . Very English of you.”

“I just thought…”

He didn’t finish. There was a pause.

“Do you know why I dislike the English so much?” she said.

“I wasn’t really prepared for sun. Funnily enough.”

“I think, of all the reasons — spitefulness, condescension, pseudo-amateurishness — it’s that air of superiority you affect whenever you open your mouths.” She said all this very matter-of-factly, as if she were remarking that Alma-May had the afternoon off on Thursdays.

“It seems unusually warm for April,” he persevered. “But then of course we’re so much further south.”

“It doesn’t surprise me at all that you have this…this international reputation as hypocrites.” She puffed at her cigarette. “The loud claim to be acting in the public interest which in reality disguises a ruthless self -interest.”

“Quite overpoweringly hot today, walking into Luxora. Do you have a rainy season here?”

“We call it ‘winter’, in our quaint way.”

“Vague sort of tropical feel, if you know what I mean.”

Ash dropped into her lap. Get your own ashtray he said to himself cruelly, if you can.

“This sort of smugness, self-satisfaction…”

Henderson curled his upper lip in a smug self-satisfied sneer.

“…and yet you seem to be genuinely surprised when you’re not treated as number one any more. Genuinely.”

“It’s extremely kind of — Duane? — to fix my car.” He was not going to be drawn by this girl, no matter how angry he got.

“And you still assume that the rest of the world wants to ape the British way; ape your manners, ape your style, ape your attitudes.”

Something about the repeated use of the word ‘ape’ made him bulge his lower lip with his tongue and allow his hands to dangle, knuckles inward, from his elbows. He crossed his eyes and mimed picking a nit from his hair and popping it in his mouth.

“Really, these are the wildest generalizations,” he said, composing his features, and now rather enjoying himself. It was childish, he realized; like making faces at the teacher’s back as she wrote on the blackboard, but rather wicked fun. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure they were still alone.

“Sad,” she said. “Pathetic.”

The finality in her voice made him suddenly irritated with her. He leant forward and silently mouthed “Oh do fuck off you stupid woman.” He could see twin images of himself in her opaque lenses, bulging faced, exophthalmic.

“You too, asshole,” she said, getting to her feet and strolling over to the drinks table where she poured herself a shot of whisky. “Still, I enjoyed the show. I liked the ape best.”

Henderson’s hand shook so much that Californian wine slopped over the rim onto his trousers. With a brief drum-roll of glass on wood he set it down and dabbed at the stain with his handkerchief. He leant back in his armchair as a shiver ran the length of his body. He opened his mouth to say something but all that emerged was a thin, reedy piping noise — like a sick or injured peewit — but nothing else. His seized brain had gone out of control. No conceptual structures existed to cope with this sort of massive social shame, a gaffe of such epic proportions.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and leapt to his feet in alarm. It was Loomis Gage.

“Sorry to have missed you earlier, Mr Dores.” He seemed not to have noticed Henderson’s starting eyes or oozing brow. He felt like a horse saved from a burning stable, almost whinnying in panic.

“Don’t mention—” the words turned into a cough. He pounded his chest with a fist. “Not at all.”

“I trust Cora’s been looking after you.”

“We’ve been having a most interesting conversation, Dad. Haven’t we, Mr Dores?”

“ Pweep .”

“I want you to meet my other guests.” Gage swept his arm round. “Our preacher from Luxora Beach, the Reverend T.J. Cardew and his wife Monika.”

Henderson turned to greet the couple in the doorway. The Reverend T.J. Cardew was a dapper, fleshy, youngish man (mid-thirties, Henderson guessed) with curly black hair and long thin sideburns that terminated sharply at his jawbone. He wore a sober black suit, a red shirt with silver metal tabs on the collar and a loud checked tie. His wife sported a lime-green dress over which she’d thrown a white net shawl. She had square gold framed glasses and reddish brown hair which was wound and back-combed into a beehive. She had a big frame and seemed larger all round than her husband. Her face was sullen, despite her bright red lips and pale blue eyelids. The primary colours did little to disguise the fact that she was deeply bored.

Henderson shook hands with them both. He tried not to look at Cora.

“How do you do? How do you do, reverend?”

“Very nice to know you, Henderson. Just call me T.J.”

Henderson doubted that he’d actually ever be able to do this, but smiled encouragingly.

“T.J. knows Europe well,” Gage confided. “And Monika there is in fact of German origin. Mr Dores is from England.”

Monika Cardew looked marginally more interested.

“Where in Germany are you from?” Henderson asked dutifully.

“Berlin.”

“We met,” T.J. interjected, “when I was serving there. As chaplain to the 43rd airborne.”

“An army bride,” Monika said flatly. She had a noticeable German accent.

“What’ll it be, T.J.?” Gage asked.

“Oh, I think a drop of the Goat, as usual, Loomis.”

“You must try some of this, Mr Dores,” Gage said, holding up a squat brown bottle. Henderson took it from him and looked at the label. “Henry’s Goat,” he read. “Sour Mash Bourbon.” On the label was a fine engraving of a tethered goat, and in the background a queue of people waiting outside a tumbledown wooden shack.

“Sippin’ whisky,” Gage said. “The secret of my survival.”

Gage poured him out a large measure in a small glass. Henderson, still shaky from the sudden revelation of Cora’s normal vision, allowed himself a sizeable gulp. The liquid had a thick smooth quality and slid down his gullet as easily as an oyster.

“Very pleasant,” he said, before what seemed like a small fragmentation grenade exploded in his stomach. A column of flame rose up his oesophagus. He shuffled his feet and breathed thin streams of hot vibrating air out through his nose. Some sort of dazed smile, he hoped, registered on his features.

“Goodness,” he said.

“Sort of creeps up on you,” Cardew laughed unattractively.

Gage administered more drinks and regularly pressed the bell to summon Alma-May.

“That boy sure loves his modern music,” Cardew said, acknowledging the bass rhythms vibrating from Duane’s room.

“Do you like rock music, Mr Dores?” Cora asked him innocently, lenses unsparingly focused on his face.

“No I don’t as a matter of fact. I prefer classical music.”

“You and Cora have something in common, then, Mr Dores,” Gage said, putting his arm round his daughter. “She is a wonderful pianist. Will you play something tonight for us, honey? After dinner?”

“No.”

“No persuading our Cora.” Cardew beamed. Gage seemed unperturbed by the abrupt refusal. Alma-May came in with a tray of canapes followed by Freeborn and Shanda. Shanda’s eyes were bloodshot and she looked sulky. Henderson stood up and offered her his seat but Freeborn steered her away to a sofa.

“I understand your daughter is with you, Henderson,” Cardew said. “That’s nice.”