William Boyd: Stars and bars

Look at Henderson Dores walking up Park Avenue in New York City. “I’m late,” he is thinking; and he is, late for work. He is carrying his sabres in a thin bag over his right shoulder and trying to appear calm and at ease, but that permanently worried expression on his square open face gives him away rather. The crowds of Americans — neat, well-dressed — stride past him purposefully, unheeding, confident.

Henderson walks on. He is nearly forty years old — birthday coming up fast — and just under six feet tall. His frame is sturdy and his face is kind and agreeably attractive. To his constant surprise, people are inclined to like him on first acquaintance. He is polite, quite smartly dressed and, apart from that slight frown buckling his forehead he seems as composed and as unconcerned as, well, as you or me. But Henderson has a complaint, a grudge, a grumble of a deep and insidious kind. He doesn’t like himself anymore; isn’t happy with the personality he’s been provided with, thank you very much. Something about him isn’t up to scratch, won’t do. He’ll keep the flesh, but he’d like to do a deal on the spirit, if nobody minds. He wants to change — he wants to be different from what he is. And that, really, is why he is here.

He runs a hand through his thick hair, short, but cut long, as it were, in the English way. To the practised observer, indeed, everything about him proclaims his Englishness. His haircut — already noted — his pale lashed eyes, the bloom on his unshaven cheekbones, his old blue suit with its double vents in the jacket, the dull worn gold signet ring on the little finger of his left hand, his navy blue ankle-length socks (only butlers and chauffeurs wear black), and his shiny, well-creased, toe-capped black Oxford shoes.

This knowledge — that he is so distinguishable — would distress him because, in fact, his grand and only dream is to fit in; to merge and blend with the identity of these earnest, enviable people on their way to work. Just another Manhattanite, he tells himself, as he transfers his sabres to his left shoulder, just like everybody else here. He frowns again slightly and slows down. This is his problem: he loves America, but will America love him back? Up ahead the lunatic is waiting.

♦

“The furrier at midnight thinks his hands are full of clouds.”

“Go away, please.”

“The furrier at midnight thinks his hands are full of clouds.”

Usually, Henderson Dores didn’t speak to the madmen. He found that by pretending the person simply didn’t exist — actually wasn’t there — it was possible to ignore the most venomous rant. It was a trick he’d first seen perfected by timid dons at Oxford whenever they were accosted by importunate drunks in narrow lanes. The fixed smile, eyes straight ahead, and — abracadabra — there was no drunk. So, with a small effort of will he cancelled the madman, set his features in the requisite mild false smile, took two paces to the left and moved off again.

The lunatic loped along at his side.

Don’t stop, that was the rule. He shouldn’t have stopped, but what this one was saying made some sort of perverse sense.

He looked about him, trying to ignore the malign companion at his side. On this bright April morning New York seemed to expand and rejoice in the thin clean air. Above, the sky was an unobstructed blue. It was what he termed a ‘meringue’ day: crisp, sharp, frangible…

A series of tugs at his elbow. You do not exist, Henderson said to himself, therefore you cannot be tugging at my elbow. His arm was gripped, uncompromisingly. He stopped. Vague fear stimulated his pulse rate. The undeodorized lunatic wore a beige overcoat (collar up), scarf, battered trilby, sunglasses, and held an opened black umbrella above his head. Henderson saw sweat slide from beneath the hat brim.

“Please. Leave me alone,” Henderson said firmly.

The crowd swirled round this impediment.

“Charming people have something to hide.” The lunatic spoke in a sing-song woman’s voice. His face was too close; his breath smelt curiously of old lemons.

“Leave me alone or I shall call the police.”

“Ah fuck you, asshole.”

That was more like it. The lunatic stood back and levelled a finger at him, thumb cocked.

“ BAM! ”

Henderson flinched with genuine shock, turned and strode on. “Bam! Bam! Bam!” faded behind him. He shuddered. Good Lord, he thought, what a disturbing encounter. He eased the weight of his sabres and checked that the shoulder strap wasn’t creasing his suit. The furrier at midnight thinks his hands are full of clouds . That wasn’t too bad actually, for a crazy, he thought, calming down somewhat. It was like a coded spy-greeting; or a line from a better symbolist poem.

He trudged on up Park Avenue’s gentle slope. Younger people overtook him. A pretty girl in an elegant, mushroom-coloured silk suit walked strongly by, incongruous in her training shoes. Her breasts leapt beneath the sheen of her blouse. Her streaked blonde hair was clamped with tiny headphones. She mimed to the song she alone was hearing. Henderson wondered whether he should wish her a ‘nice day’. You could do that sort of thing here: confer cheery blessings on any passing stranger. “ Hey, enjoy your music! ” he could shout. Or, “ Have a great lunch! ” or even, “ Be well! ” He shook his head admiringly and said nothing.

He increased his speed. With the palp of a forefinger he squeezed moisture from his wiry blond eyebrows. He was getting a little concerned about his eyebrows. They had been unexceptionable, inconspicuous things until recently. Now they had thickened and coarsened; certain hairs had begun spontaneously to grow and curl: they were becoming a feature. Just like his nipples, he thought…He checked himself: save the worries for the way home.

Home was a small apartment in a block on East Sixty-second between Lexington and Second Avenues. Convenient enough for the office, if a somewhat uphill hike, but the evening downhill amble was a compensation for the early morning effort. He looked at his watch again. He was late. Astonishingly and gratifyingly he had fallen into a deep sleep sometime after five a.m. and had woken at eight, his head empty of dreams. He had felt a sob of relief in his throat: perhaps, finally, it was all going to change now; perhaps this was a sign: America really was going to work…

He was keen on signs, these days; he analysed them with the assiduity of an apprentice hierophant. And at first they all seemed to bode well.

He had arrived in America, at J.F.K. airport, some two months previously. It had been raining, heavy drops slanting yellow through the airport lights. He had half-planned to kiss the ground (given a discreet moment) pontiff-like, but stepped straight from the plane into a mean corridor. He passed through surly immigration and taciturn customs in a benign trance: those drawls, those impossible names, the real gun on the real cop’s hip.

Outside, the rain had worsened. A tall, very angry black man in a glossy oilskin controlled the queue for taxis with hoarse shouts and imperious gestures. The taxis and the queue formed an obedient line. The gleaming, battered yellow cabs…

Henderson stood beside the taxi-marshal for a while, happy to wait. The man was muttering to himself under his breath. Askance, Henderson looked at his moustache, his thick curved lips, the way he seemed to keep moving even while standing still. Water dripped steadily from his cap’s peak.