William Boyd - Stars and bars

“Great.” Henderson felt untypically calm. He looked at the fire. Its fuel seemed to gleam and glint strangely.

“What are you burning?”

“Oh. Mr Gage’s pictures.”

Henderson felt his adam’s apple swell to block his throat. He knelt down. Testing first with licked fingertips he slid a semi-charred stick from the fire’s edge. It had been a thin finely worked section of frame, some of the dull gold moulding was still unburnt. Using it as a poker he prodded at the contents of the fire. Frames, nothing but frames. Some intact, some broken. Empty frames with a few crisp, blackened shreds of canvas adhering to them.

“Why have you burnt them?” he asked quietly, not wanting to provoke or cause offence.

“He told me to.”

“Who?”

“Mr Gage.”

“When? Why?”

Duane put his hands in his pockets and gazed at the fire. “Well, you know, after he had his kind of attack…Beckman took Monika home and went for the Doc. I picked Mr Gage up and carried him back to his room. I felt kinda bad seein’ as how he’d been shouting at me, and all. That it was sorta on account of me, like…” Duane paused.

“He was, ah, you know, breathin’ all sorts of wheezes and gasps and he says, “Duane, you got to do one thing for me.” I says, “Sure thing, Mr Gage, what’s that?” An’ he says, “You gotta take those paintings off of the walls and burn ‘em. Burn ‘em all. And don’t let Freeborn or Cora or Beckman see you doing it. Don’t let anybody know.” So I said OK, good as done. And then he said swear. So I swore on the Bible and my mother’s head. He told me to do it as soon as I could…” Duane kicked aimlessly at a jutting frame.

“And then, I guess, he died. Though I couldn’t be sure. Then Beckman and the Doc came in.”

Henderson picked up another section of frame. Holding it to the fire he could read the careful copperplate of its inscription. “Edouard Vuillard (1886–1940).” He tossed it back on the fire. So much for the Gage collection. Smoke and cinders.

“But why did he ask you to burn them?”

“Hell, I don’t know, Mr Dores. Maybe he didn’t have any more use for them seein’ as he was dying. Maybe he didn’t want for anybody else to have them. They were his own, sorta thing. Not anyone else’s.” Duane spread his hands. “Listen, I’m just doing what he told me, you know? I swore I would.”

“I suppose so.” Henderson rubbed his forehead.

“Mr Dores?”

“Yes?”

“Did, uh, Bryant like kinda say anything to you? About us?…Not you an’ me. Me an’ Bryant. I’d sure like to talk with you—”

“Let’s talk about it in the morning,” Henderson said. He was suddenly reminded of his kidnapping plans. He had to keep Duane out of the way.

“I think I’ll get back to bed,” he said cautiously.

“I’ll just stay on here. Make sure it all burns away. Check it don’t spread, sorta thing.”

“Good idea. In fact you’d better make absolutely sure. Be very careful.”

“Don’t worry, sir. I’ll make sure.”

“See you in the morning.”

“Sure, and hey, I’ll get your car back. Sure thing. Nice talkin’ to you, Mr Dores.” Duane held out his big hand.

Henderson shook it, smiled, and walked quickly back into the house. In his room when he bent down to pick up his bag he thought he would faint. He paddled air onto his face with stiff hands. He felt as though some tiny but vicious fist were pounding him repeatedly in the chest. His legs trembled dramatically. Easy, boy. He summoned up one of Eugene Teagarden’s breathing drills, flaring his nostrils, voiding his lungs. Nymphs and shepherds. In, out. Come away. Inhale. Exhale. Cough. Come come come co-ome away.

Then, marginally composed, he crept into Bryant’s room.

Speed was crucial now. He switched on the light. Bryant slept on, mouth open, still snoring. Her clothes lay scattered all over the room. He thought of trying to gather them into her suitcase but decided there wasn’t time. Anyway, the girl had enough clothes as it was. He picked up a pair of green jeans and a yellow sweatshirt. He would simply pull them on over her pyjamas…

He knew, or rather he thought he knew from their effect on him, what the consequences of taking three sleeping capsules were. One was not comatose and could be woken. And from there one could stay awake with some prompting, could walk, even talk a bit, just like someone who — logically enough — had been roused from deep sleep. The difference was that the sensation of bleary baffled consciousness never departed, as it did from a normal sleeper, normally roused; rather it prevailed for a further twenty-four hours. Or at least that had been his experience. He remembered his own stumbling, blunt day after he had taken the pills. His head turned quicker than his eyes. His hands were composed of ten calloused thumbs. His bottom lip grew oddly heavy, irresistibly inclined to hang free from its partner. Saliva pooled in every oral cavity, causing embarrassing spillage, or else constant loud draining noises. After he had spent a couple of hours in the office like this, Beeby had ordered him home. Now Henderson was counting on Bryant being similarly inconvenienced.

“ Bryant ,” he hissed, and whipped the sheet back. He whipped it up again and turned away, one hand on his mouth, one across his forehead. The fist started punching again. He looked stupidly about the room. She was naked .

Bloody thoughtless bitch! he swore petulantly. He saw her pyjamas crumpled by the bed. He rubbed his hands across his face as if he were washing it. His palms were warmed by the heat of his brow and glowing cheeks. There was nothing for it. He prayed Duane was still diligently supervising the fire. He pulled down the sheet again.

He felt guilt and shame swill through his body as — despite stringent moral injunctions to the contrary — he stared at Bryant’s nude body in fascinated curiosity. The firm pointed breasts, the soft pale nipples, the skin stretched tight over the staves of her rib cage, the etiolated trace of a bikini bottom, the oddly touching, thin, vertical stripe of pubic hair…He had to wake her up. He sat beside her. But first — evil Henderson — he covered a breast for a second with a hot shivering palm.

“Bryant. Wake up.” He shook her, grabbed her wrists and hauled her into a sitting position.

“Wha…?”

He pulled the sweatshirt over her slubbed blinking face, tugged it down over those accusing breasts. Working like a harassed mother — he concertina-ed the legs of the jeans and directed her boneless feet through the holes. Tug. Up to the knees. Keep the eyes on the toenails: chipped and scarred with aubergine varnish.

“Wha’s happ…”—swallow—“…ning, Hndrson?”

“We’re going.” Tug, heave. “Lie down. Make a bridge.”

“Wha?”

“Make a bridge.” He slid a hand, palm uppermost, between the warm sheet and her warm buttocks and lifted. She held it there. Mohican crest. He pulled.

“OK.” There just remained the zip on the fly. He was disgusted to notice a straining behind his own.

“Hold it.” Zip. Soft cilia brushed the knuckle of his forefinger. Then he pushed his hand down the left sleeve of her sweatshirt, located her left wrist and pulled it through. Right sleeve. She was dressed. He licked his lips and tasted salt. A palm wiped across face came away slick and shiny.

“Hennerson. I wanna go…sleep.” Her eyeballs rolled, white in the sockets for a second.

He found some shoes, flat creased gold moccasins, and slipped them on her feet. Then he had a flash of inspiration. He tore a leaf out of his notebook and wrote in capital letters:

DEAR DUANE,

IT’S NO GOOD. I DON’T LOVE YOU ENOUGH TO GO AWAY WITH YOU. I’VE GONE BACK TO NEW YORK WITH HENDERSON. IT’S ALL OVER. SORRY.