William Boyd - Stars and bars

“Freeborn, please !”

“Is England the same place as Scotland or what?” Shanda asked. “That’s what I want to know.”

“Why, Henderson, why does ant-eye nuclear always equal ant-eye Uncle Sam?”

“To be honest, M.P., I think you’ve lost the gist—” he had to strain to hear now, above the crescendo of noise. Everybody was talking.

“Hell, man, we’re all ant-eye war, aren’t we? I tell you in Nam—”

“Henderson, I would say this to you. To your people, Henderson. Tell them, Henderson, tell them we are your friends. Do not turn us away, for God’s sweet sake!”

“Look, E.T., or whatever your blasted name is—”

“Man, when you got incoming, hell, are you ant-eye war!”

“ Why , Henderson, why? ”

“Why what? You stupid bloody—”

“—leave you alone, then see what happens—”

“—you got Scotland, OK. You got England—”

“—wasting slopes in Dac Tro—”

“—God’s abiding love—”

“—someone who’d been to Egypt?—”

“ WAAAAARGH!! ”

Everyone stopped talking at once. The scream had issued from the lips of the Reverend T.J. Cardew. He had leapt wildly to his feet, knocking over his chair, and was now white with pain and clutching his right knee with both hands. In the subsequent alarm and fuss, amid the shouted questions and commiserations, Henderson saw Bryant surreptitiously bring her hand up from beneath the table and replace a fork.

Henderson stood up and felt the room wheel and bank. He heard the black-eyed beans, hoppin’ John, corn dogs and turnip greens in his stomach clamouring for the open air. “Excuse me,” he mumbled, and left the room. He ran to the front door, sprang down the front steps and vomited into an azalea bush.

He leant weakly against the wall, the world still tilting and reeling. He hawked and spat and kicked loose earth over such bits of his regurgitated meal as he could see. He moaned quietly to himself. He felt terrible. Rough careless hands were clenching his intestines, tugging and squeezing. He breathed deeply, recalling a Teagarden drill. Controlled relaxation. Inhale, exhale. Controlled relaxation.

There was a breeze outside. It blew across the moonlit grass bringing with it a scent of pines. He looked up at the constant, uncomplaining stars. He heard the distant rush of a freight train on the Luxora Beach line, and the human cry of its call. If he hadn’t felt so ill and drunk he might have been overcome with melancholia.

He wandered about in a rough figure-of-eight pattern, had a final spit and was about to go back inside when he heard the sound of a telephone from Freeborn’s mobile home. He stumbled across. Yes, definitely ringing. He swithered for a moment. Should he go and get Freeborn? Something about the tone of the ring, he thought wildly and fancifully, made him convinced it was a call from New York. He tried the door. Locked. The phone continued ringing. He ran to the front steps, ran back to the door and tugged vainly at it. The ringing stopped. In his anger and frustration he punched the door and bruised his knuckles.

“ Ouch! Bastard!” he swore.

He turned round and saw the orange glow of a cigarette on the porch.

“Having fun?” Cora said.

“The phone,” he said. “It was ringing. Then it stopped.”

Strange displacements and shiftings were still going on in his abdominal region. The last thing he required was a conversation with Cora.

“So I heard. How are you feeling?” She looked oddly malignant in her black dress and black glasses in the darkness of the porch.

“Not so good. I think I’d better make my excuses.”

“Daddy wants to show you his paintings.”

“Oh yes, of course. Gladly.” He climbed the front steps. The smell of her cigarette smoke mingled with that of the pines and the lingering acidity of his vomit. It was not a pleasant conjunction.

“Everything has sort of calmed down in there,” she said. “T.J. explained that the pain was an old football injury. It sometimes gets him like that. Out of the blue.”

“Ah.”

“Your daughter looked a little sceptical.”

“Yes. She would.”

There was a pause.

“Look,” Henderson began. “I want to apologize about my behaviour earlier. It was unforgivable. I don’t know what possessed me. I mean, even if you had been blind…that’s to say, well, really, it’s hardly the sort of thing one should do — especially at my age.” He looked out at the night. “Appalling.”

“Don’t worry about it. And, remember, I did rather lead you on.”

The porch light was switched on. It was Gage.

“Feeling better, Mr Dores? The Goat can get you that way.”

“I needed a breath of fresh air.”

“A breath of fresh air. I like that. Ready to do business?”

Henderson said goodnight to Cora and wearily followed Gage back inside and upstairs.

He felt a new wave of nausea hit him as Gage unlocked his door and switched on the light. Henderson saw a generous sitting room with a bedroom off it, a replica of Cora’s suite across the passage. There was an old leather Chesterfield, an antique escritoire and a large glass-fronted, largely empty bookcase against one wall between two windows. The other three walls were covered in paintings and photographs, most of the larger canvases with brass picture lights over them. On one wall in pride of place was a large amateurish oil of a woman, idealized and prettified, and surrounding this were numerous black-framed photographs.

“Mrs Gage,” Henderson was informed. “God rest her soul. Died fifteen years ago.”

Henderson wandered over. The photographs were an odd mixture. Gage shaking hands with various dignitaries — Henderson recognized two American presidents, a toupeed crooner and Ernest Hemingway — and a large photo of a café scene that bore the heading ‘Paris, 1922.’. There were various studio portraits of the Gage offspring, charting the usual transformation from smiling child through shifty adolescent to banal adult.

Suppressing a belch, and making a mighty effort to clear his head he turned to the paintings. If he hadn’t felt so drunk and under the weather he would have been elated, the object of his visit having finally been achieved. In the event, it was as much as he could do to keep them in focus.

Beeby’s summary had been accurate. On the first wall were four not very remarkable, school of so-and-so, muddy Dutch landscapes of the late seventeenth century, he guessed. There was also, with this group, a portrait of a bearded man and a small allegorical work.

The other wall was devoted to the twentieth century. Henderson noted the two large Sisley landscapes — a river lined with poplars, an orchard screening red-roofed barns — a Derain — a green barge on a red river — two bold still lifes, a rather run-of-the-mill Braque cubist portrait, a Utrillo street-scene under snow, and two shimmering, translucent Vuillard interiors.

“That’s where I had rooms,” Gage said, pointing to the Utrillo. “Max painted it for me.”

Henderson knew he should be computing value and expressing huge enthusiasm but a fair portion of his mind’s attention was still claimed by the structural redevelopment going on in his torso. It sounded like men moving furniture from room to room.

“A remarkable collection, Mr Gage. I like them very much.”

“I bought them all in one year,” Gage said nostalgically, “1922. I had more money than I knew what to do with.” He laid a hand on Henderson’s shoulder. “Tell the truth, I went to Europe for a good time, no intention of buying paintings. But there you are. I met Hem and Scotty. They said a man like me ought to collect some art, so I did. Bought direct off of some artists, off their friends, one or two dealers and shipped them home. I thought about buying some more over the years, but there didn’t seem much point. I had my paintings. I liked them. I didn’t need any more.”