William Boyd - Stars and bars

Shanda’s taxi arrived and she ducked in promptly, trying not to get wet. Henderson gave her his suitcase and the driver his address.

“I’ll be along in an hour or so,” he said to Shanda. “Or thereabouts,” he added. He had a sudden mad impulse to try and see Irene. He stepped back beneath the eave. The rain was falling with steady purpose. Large puddles formed in the generous declivities of the road surface. Cars had their lights on, so intense was the murk. He felt clammy and uncomfortable — the pathetic fallacy working in his favour as usual. Bryant, who had slept through the entire flight from Atlanta, seemed to be coming round somewhat.

“Where are we?” she said, looking about her with half-closed eyes. “Is Duane here?”

Henderson pushed her into their taxi without replying. She immediately fell asleep again, her head on his shoulder.

“Long trip?” said the taxi driver. His identification card gave his name as Ezekiel Adekunle.

“Atlanta,” Henderson said.

“ Ow! Whatin you go dere for? Ah-ah.” The taxi driver sucked in air through his teeth.

Good question, Henderson thought. “Been raining long?” he asked.

“You are Englishman?”

“Yes. Yes I am.”

“I am from Nigeria.”

“Oh. I see. Been raining long?”

“Two days. We done get flash-flood warning.”

With a wet sloshing of tyres the taxi climbed a gentle hill on the freeway. At its crest they were afforded a view of the north end of Manhattan. The clouds hung low over the city. The upper stories of even the more modest skyscrapers were engulfed by grey. His heart lifted at the view, but only by an inch or so. They crossed the Tri-borough Bridge and began the long drive south to Mel-issa’s apartment block. The low clouds, the relentless rain, the teeming umbrellas on the sidewalk made the crowded streets appear more fraught than ever. If your view up is denied in Manhattan, Henderson thought, the place holds about as much appeal as the Edgware Road.

They arrived at Melissa’s door. Henderson propelled Bryant beneath the dripping awning.

“Welcome back, Miss Wax,” said the doorman.

Bryant frowned, her brain trying to grasp this new information.

“Don’t tell her mother we’re here,” Henderson said. “I want it to be a surprise.”

They ascended in the lift, stepped out and pressed the buzzer on the thick door. He heard the harsh yelping of Candice and Gervase. Henderson felt like leaving Bryant on the threshold like a foundling, and tip-toeing away.

The door opened.

“ Baby! Darling!” Hugs, tears, lavished kisses. Henderson followed mother and daughter into the sitting room.

“Is Duane here?”

“No, baby, he certainly is not.” Aside, in a cold, distanced voice to Henderson. “What’s wrong with her?”

“She’s very tired. Early start. It was a difficult journey. A cold coming we had of it.”

“What are you talking about? Here, Albertine, take Bryant to her room.” Bryant was led away by the maid. Melissa turned to face him.

“Now my fine fellow, what are we going to do about you?”

Henderson listened, head down, as his character was put through the shredder. With the damp toe of his shoe he moved the pile of the carpet this way and that. He interjected the odd rejoinder to the effect that it had been — when all was said and done — Bryant’s decision to come to Luxora and, indeed, come to think of it, Melissa’s enthusiasm about the notion had been conspicuous. But these caveats went unheard in the acid rain of scorn that descended on him.

A natural release, he told himself; all that repressed fear and apprehension has to let itself go somehow. But by now anger had given way to irony. Melissa was wondering how Henderson had spent his ‘precious’ time while her little baby was getting corrupted by some redneck pervert. She had a certain amount to learn yet about her little baby, Henderson thought.

“I suppose you got your precious paintings and you’ll go back to your precious office some kind of a hero. But what about Bryant? What kind of awful trauma?”

“You might be interested to know, Melissa,” he said, putting his hands in his pockets and taking them out again, “that the paintings have been destroyed and I’ve lost my job.”

That silenced her for a while.

“What kind of man are you? You…you jerk-off. What sort of an excuse for a — You’re pathetic. That’s what you are, pah-thetic!”

“Goodbye, Melissa,” Henderson said firmly, stepping abruptly to the door. He didn’t need this. Gervase and Candice bounded from the sofa — where they’d idly been surveying the row- and came yapping and nipping round his ankles.

“ Gervase! Candice! ” Melissa screamed.

Henderson hornpiped out of her life.

He slammed the apartment door and leant against it, a little breathless, like a heroine who has locked the inept lecher out in the passageway. He pressed the button for the lift, pursed his lips and shook his head sadly. Delete paintings, job and ex-wife. That only left Irene.

Going down in the lift he reflected with false calm that a lot of his sanity now rested on Irene’s strong shoulders. He wondered if the present moment was the one in which to assail her. He looked at his watch. Nearly lunchtime. She would be at work with her bearded brother. She always ate in the same delicatessen…perhaps that would be the place. Just saunter in: “Hi, Irene, I’m back. Wow, what a time I’ve had. Busy tonight?” It sounded good, but he had grave doubts. Still, he was a desperate man now.

“Let me call you a cab, Mr Dores,” the obliging shiny-oilskinned doorman said, opening the glass panels of the doorway and blowing the whistle he wore round his neck on a lanyard.

Three macintoshed men on the sidewalk turned round.

“Hey, Henderson,” one of them called. “No problem. We got the car round the corner.”

Peter Gint, Henderson thought, had singularly bad taste in shoes. The model he was looking at, some two inches from his eyes, was a heavy, brogued, two-toned orange and brown number. That was the left shoe; the right rested on the back of his neck.

He was lying on the floor in the back of a car, heading, as far as he could determine, south through Manhattan. In the front were Freeborn and Sereno. Gint sat in the back guarding him.

When he had emerged from Melissa’s apartment block the three men had surrounded him like friends and had jovially led him away. Gint had showed him a gun, a black, clenched, snub-nosed looking thing and Henderson had decided swiftly to do everything they asked.

Once inside the car Gint had produced the gun again and asked him to lie face down on the floor. No-one had said anything, with the exception of Freeborn who from time to time leant over the front seat and said, “Bastard. We got you, you dipstick bastard.”

Henderson stared at Gint’s shoe. Some safety device in his body was preventing him from being sick all over it. He felt frightened, all right — but for some reason it wasn’t overwhelming. Every time he tried to protest Gint would increase the pressure on the back of his neck and say ‘shut up’. Lying face down as he was, Henderson could see nothing of the city. He heard only the noise of the rain on the roof, the metronomic ticking of the windscreen wipers and the splash of the tyres on the wet streets. How had they caught up with him so quickly, he wondered? But then on reflection he realized it wouldn’t have taken brilliant sleuthing to have divined where he was heading — there were plenty of airports and plenty of planes to New York — and Bryant’s presence would indicate a visit to Melissa at some early juncture. Bryant’s address?…From her abandoned luggage, no doubt, or Duane.