William Boyd - Stars and bars

BRYANT.

He couldn’t fret over composition or style. He just hoped Duane could read. He folded the note, wrote ‘DUANE’ on the front, and left it prominently on the pillow.

“Come on,” he said to Bryant. “We’re going to meet Duane. Don’t make a sound.”

He took her hand and led her out of the room. She came docilely. She lurched and staggered a bit and once said ‘Duane’ in a loud clear voice but they made their way down the stairs without being discovered and without too much difficulty. Henderson unbolted the front door and stepped outside onto the porch. There was a faint dawn-lightening in the sky by now, the stars were almost gone. His brick still stood in place of his car: even if the car had been there he realized he couldn’t have used it. He had to leave with maximum stealth. And he was running a little late. He was counting on Duane not visiting Bryant’s room until after breakfast.

With his case in one hand and the other on her elbow he guided Bryant down the steps. The large bulk of Freeborn’s trailer was completely dark. He felt the sweat cool on his face.

“See Duane?” Bryant mumbled.

“ Shh . Yes.” Goodbye, he breathed at the Gage mansion, goodbye forever.

“Let’s go.”

“ Henderson ? Is that you?”

He whirled round almost dropping his case with shock and surprise.

“Whatcha doin’?” Shanda stood at the foot of the trailer steps, wearing a pale grey dressing gown.

“We’re getting out of here,” he whispered.

“I heard noises earlier. Were you movin’ around?”

“No.” It was probably Duane. “Goodbye, Shanda.”

“Hey, wait on a minute. I’m coming too.”

“No!”

“Henderson, I can just go right on back in there and wake Freeborn. I’m sure he’d like for to know what you’re all doin’ out here.”

“Oh God, Jesus H. Christ. OK. Anything. But hurry, for God’s sake.”

“I’ll be two minutes.”

He felt his sinuses thicken and clog and his eyes screw up of their own accord. It could have been a sneeze but he knew it was tears of frustration. He shook his head angrily.

“Shanda?” muttered Bryant, lolling against him.

“Yes, she’s coming too.”

Subjective hours later Shanda appeared. Henderson kept expecting the broad figure of Duane to amble round the corner of the house. Shanda wore a print dress beneath — what looked like Freeborn’s denim jacket. She carried a small nylon hold-all.

“Let’s go,” she said conspiratorially. “Hi, Bryant honey.”

They set off down the road to Luxora Beach, Bryant’s feet dragging rather at Henderson’s brisk pace, Shanda making surprisingly good progress in spite of her high heels.

“What’s wrong with her, Henderson?”

“She took a couple of sleeping pills.”

“What?”

“Pills. Sleeping bloody pills.”

“Oh. Got you.”

“Are you sure you didn’t wake Freeborn?”

“Sleepin’ like a hog. Are you sure it wasn’t you come by earlier? About three or four times?”

“No.” Duane lugging pictures no doubt.

They pressed on along the dark lane. The crickets were almost silent, only the odd solo voice joined by an early chirping bird. There was a refreshing moist coolness in the air. The dark had retreated; the light was grey and silver, the trees and bushes still and opaque. Glancing to his right he could see Shanda, taking giant unsteady strides in an effort to keep pace. Henderson slowed, out of respect for the jolting embryo.

Soon they arrived at Luxora Beach. A few lights were on; the solitary traffic light hanging above main street shone amber, amber, amber. The bar was dark and inert; no neon gleamed. They paused at the railway line. Shan-da wiped some drool from Bryant’s sweatshirt front. A distant rumble in the east turned into a monster truck which thundered needlessly through the town.

“Are you sure she’s OK?”

“Yes,” Henderson looked around. “She’s jist plum tuckered out.” Three cars stood in the otherwise deserted mall. What now?

“What now?” Shanda said. She lit a cigarette and leant against the stanchion of a railway warning sign.

“A bus, I thought. An early morning bus to Atlanta.”

“A bus? Are you kidding? Ain’t no bus in Luxora.”

Henderson smiled stupidly. Of course not. He was thinking of tiny English villages, all with local bus routes. Stoppers. What a fool…Just then he longed for an English bus, with its hard furry seats, its smell of wet coats, stale cigarette smoke and diesel. A surly fat yob of a driver with badges and a pencil behind his ear.

“OK, so we gotta hitch a ride,” Shanda said.

They crossed tracks and waited. An odd forlorn threesome, Henderson thought. Shanda solicitously checked on Bryant, who was swaying about and mumbling that she was tired.

“You want a smoke, honey?”

“No. She can’t smoke.”

“OK.” Shanda stretched back, both hands supporting her spine. “I’m glad I could come along, Henderson,” she said sincerely. “I appreciate it.”

“Mmm.”

“No I mean it. I couldn’t have stood it there any more, with Loomis gone and all. Loomis was the only person could keep Freeborn down.” She shook her head. “You just get me to New York. Should be far enough away.” She flicked her cigarette out into the road. It was getting distinctly lighter. Behind the church somewhere Henderson heard a car start up. Some upstairs windows shone yellow. A door slammed. A banal cock crowed. The flags on the post office flagpole still hung at half mast for Loomis Gage.

Henderson stood on the dust verge and looked down the grey road. He felt his body was about to petrify from the tension. A smoky lemon stripe in the east heralded the approach of the sun. For an instant he had a sensation of the rushing massive rotation of the earth. It was ten o’clock in the morning in England, the sun was shining on the Atlantic, it was the wee small hours in Los Angeles. A mile or so away the efforts and genius of some dead European artists had been reduced to ashes by a dim, innocent galoot, and their owner was starting the long process of decomposition in a box beneath the earth up on that hill. And meanwhile he, Henderson Dores, stood by the side of a side road in the hinterlands of America, with his enemy’s pregnant wife and a drugged abducted girl, trying to hitch a ride to New York. What did it all add up to, he asked himself. Where was the sense?

He heard the sound of a car, then saw its headlights.

“A car,” he said.

Shanda advanced two steps into the road. Henderson shook Bryant awake. She had been leaning against him, his elbow locked beneath her armpit. A looping filament of saliva glimmered between his jacket shoulder and her mouth, then she brushed it apart with a flopping wave of her hand.

Shanda stuck out her thumb and her pregnant belly. The car turned out to be a pickup. It stopped. The driver was a young man in a peaked cap.

“Mornin’,” he said. “Where you all goin’?”

Shanda explained. Henderson couldn’t hear what she said but stood behind her with a friendly grin on his face. The door was opened and Shanda and Bryant got in.

“You get in back, darlin’,” Shanda said. Darlin’? He obeyed. The back of the pickup was empty apart from a spade and two piles of sacks in the corners. Henderson sat down on one of them.

“Y’all OK back there?”

“Yes,” he said faintly, and the pickup moved off with a lurch. The other pile of sacks stirred, sat up and panted. A black dog, of indeterminate breed. A little unsteadily, like a man on a heaving deck, it advanced across the ribbed floor of the truck, its claws scratching on the pressed steel.

“Hello, boy,” Henderson said wearily. A bit of rope led from the dog’s collar to an attachment on the truck side. The dog sniffed at Henderson’s knee and gave it a cursory lick. It took a step or two forward and nosed at his groin. What is it about me and dogs, he thought. The dog was intrigued and snuffled more enthusiastically, its tail beating gently against the tin cab back.