William Boyd - Stars and bars

In this mood of harsh realism he turned to ‘Richard Paul Jodrell’ by Gainsborough. There was the supercilious, self-satisfied face of England. And in ‘The Mall in St James’s Park’ were the smug English belles, unchanged in two centuries. He could imagine the conversation; hear the very tones of their lazy voices. He peered closer. To his vague surprise one of the women looked remarkably like his mother.

He thought of her now, a sharp-nosed, well-preserved sixty-five-year-old, living in her neat ‘villa’ in Hove. Her over-made-up face, her grey hair cut in a youthful bob, her deep, unshakeable and unreflecting conservatism. She spent a lot of time with her grown-up nieces and their young families, a rich and popular visitor to their green-belt homes. Henderson was her only child, and they gamely maintained an appearance of filial and maternal affection that on the whole effectively disguised mutual disapproval.

Henderson strode urgently out of the room. This was what he was escaping; that was his past, now behind him forever, he hoped. He slowed down and strolled through a roomful of frothing pastel Fragonards. No Halfacre. He retraced his steps.

Halfacre seemed hardly to have moved. He was standing in front of a Vermeer, ‘Mistress and Maid’. Henderson looked at him more closely. Tears ran down his face. His chest and shoulders twitched with little sobs.

“Pruitt,” Henderson said with alarm. “What’s wrong?” Had he somehow caused further offence?

Halfacre gestured at the painting.

“It’s so true,” he said. “It’s so true.”

Henderson suppressed his automatic sneer. That’s the difference between us, he thought sadly. An immense unbridgeable gulf. We’ve both made art our careers, but he can weep in galleries. I would rather die.

Henderson moved away, somewhat disturbed. He had no idea what to say and was suddenly uncomfortably aware of the progress he still had to make before he felt at home in this country.

Look at the paintings he told himself. He obeyed. ‘The Deposition’, by Gheerhart David. ‘The Painter’, by Franz Hals. ‘Judith and Holofernes’, by Jakob van Hoegh. He paused by this one, vaguely shocked by the relish of Judith’s expression as she hacked her way crudely through Holofernes’ neck. Judith had a pert, small-chinned face, heart-shaped. Holofernes’ tongue, livid purple and foam-flecked, stuck out a good three inches.

“Pruitt, come and have a look at this,” Henderson said. That should stop him crying.

♦

Later that afternoon Beeby looked into the office with Gage’s telephone number and the instructions about where and when to meet up. They were quite simple. When Henderson arrived in Atlanta he was to phone the given number between four and five a.m. He would then be told where to proceed.

“Is that all?”

“Afraid so.”

“It’s a bit cloak and dagger, isn’t it? Is it all really necessary?”

“You know these types,” Beeby said solemnly. “Insecure. Jealous of their solitude. He was absolutely adamant on proceeding this way. Adamant. We’ve got to respect it, Henderson. Can’t afford to give offence.”

“Softly, softly.”

“Exactly.” Beeby screwed up his eyes and waggled a hand. “He sounds a bit of a dodgy number. I think we’ll have to go very carefully.”

Henderson walked with him to the door. Beeby fiddled with his signet ring.

“Good luck,” he said, and patted Henderson on the elbow. It was an expression of genuine affection and concern.

“Don’t worry,” Henderson said, his fingers brushed Beeby’s sleeve, expressing his affection in return. Whole paragraphs of information and sentiment had been conveyed in the four words.

“I’ll give you a phone once I’ve made contact. And, Tom; it’ll be fine.”

“I know. See you next week.”

Henderson watched Beeby’s tall figure amble down the corridor. He felt his eyes moist. He’s relying on me, he thought. Like a father. Almost.

The gym was down by the East River in the basement of an old building between Queensboro Bridge and F.D.R. Drive. It was the only place in Manhattan where Henderson had been able to find a sabre coach and so he charitably attempted to ignore its less salubrious qualities.

The basement windows were heavily barred and opaque with grime. The basement well was brightened by drifts of wax-paper cartons and aluminium beer and soft-drink cans. The studded and battered double steel doors were luridly and professionally graffitied with futuristic names and numbers.

Henderson went in. An ancient man behind a grille scrutinized his Queensboro Health Club membership card.

“Is Mr Teagarden here?” Henderson asked.

“Yep.”

Henderson walked along a passageway and turned into the humid locker room. Thin avenues of grey lockers took up most of the space. Low benches ran between them. Three Puerto Rican kids in boxing gear smoked in a line near Henderson’s locker.

He tried to undress with nonchalance. Then he pulled on his white socks and white polo neck jumper and stepped into his white knickerbockers. He heard the chuckles and jibes break out behind him.

“Hey, what that shit you wearing?”

Henderson laced his gym shoes.

“Some kinda fairy, man?”

He slung his sabre bag over his shoulder. Sticks and stones.

“Snow White. He Snow White!”

May break my bones. He picked up his mask, gloves and padded waistcoat. But names will never harm me.

“Spiderman! He Spiderman!”

He strode out of the locker room with as much dignity as he could muster.

The low-roofed gym area was surprisingly large. There was a boxing ring; a scrapyard of fitness machines — chain and pulley systems, canting seats and legrests, short conveyor belts with dials and handrails — and the usual barbells and weights for the glistening, walnut-brained beefcakes to toss around. There was a large padded that area for the martial arts enthusiasts and behind a door at the far end, a steam room and plunge pool.

In the far corner he could see Teagarden marking out the fencing piste with chalk.

“You’re late,” Teagarden said.

“Busy day,” Henderson apologized. “And I’ve got to be out of here by half six.”

“Ain’t no reduction.”

“Oh no. I wasn’t suggesting…”

Eugene Teagarden was black. The only black sabreur in America, he claimed, which was why he charged such high rates. He was slim and dapper with a tidy wide moustache and a manner that vacillated erratically between hostility and scorn. He was, as far as Henderson could tell, a brilliant swordsman. He taught, moreover, not fencing but ‘zencing’. The raw technique came with a heady garnish of philosophy and consciousness-expanding routines. Impelled by the continuous exhortation in America to exercise, Henderson had plumped for fencing, the only sport he had vaguely enjoyed while at school. It wasn’t so much the exercise he was after as the topic of conversation it provided him with at dinners and parties. When the talk inevitably moved to working out, aerobics, discussions of the stride-length factor in jogging, Henderson could chip in with a fencing anecdote.

He took a sabre out of his bag.

“Don’t want to waste no time, then,” Teagarden said. “Masks on. On guard.”

Henderson slid on his mask, the big Cyclopean fly-eye. He liked the mask; it made his head as featureless as a light bulb.

“Remember the drills,” Teagarden said.

Controlled relaxation, Henderson intoned, controlled relaxation. This was the key to the Teagarden approach; this was the core of zencing. And this was why he persisted with Teagarden’s abuse and truculence: it did him good, he hoped. He didn’t need to exercise, he needed the therapy.