David Szalay - Spring

He said the name of a very famous singer, an American. ‘She’s checked in as Jane Green,’ he said. ‘She’s staying until Friday or Saturday. It’s supposed to be a secret that she’s in London. She’s here to see…’ He named a film star, also American. This film star was famously married to someone other than ‘Jane Green’. ‘He’s shooting a film in London. She’s here to see him, and nobody’s supposed to know. A shot of them together would be…’ He laughed. ‘Priceless. Just priceless. I don’t imagine they’ll be seen in public together, though, and just a shot of her in London would do almost as well.’

‘If you’re in here,’ Katherine said, ‘how will you know when she comes down?’

He said he had a spy on the hotel staff who would phone him when she was on her way. Then he smiled and said, ‘I know it’s silly. All this skulduggery.’

‘Who’s your spy?’

‘I shouldn’t say.’

She shrugged and was about to say, ‘Okay,’ when he said, ‘Can you keep a secret?’

‘Sometimes.’

He laughed. ‘Sometimes?’

It was strange—she had never been so aware of her own pulse in her life. ‘If you don’t want to tell me…’ she said.

He did tell her. The spy was a man. She knew his name, knew him by sight—one of the senior security staff, who would presumably be able to see ‘Jane Green’ and her entourage emerge from their suites on his wall of CCTV monitors in the sub-basement.

‘Do you pay him?’ she said.

‘Oh,’ he said, still squinting as he smiled. ‘That is a secret, I’m afraid.’

He said that he wanted to be a landscape photographer. This was the next day—he and the other paps were still there. There had been no sign of ‘Jane Green’. He said that he loved nothing more than to travel to remote places—northern Norway, Kamchatka, Patagonia—and spend a week or two in the wilderness taking shots of nature. That is, Nature. He talked of walking for days, or even weeks, through unpeopled mountains to find the perfect shot; of setting up the equipment and waiting while the sun, in its own sweet time, moved into position. Then the exposure, a fraction of a second. That fraction of a second was the whole point. It was what justified all the waiting, the walking, the weeks of sleeping under nylon. That fraction of a second was all that mattered. It was something, he said, that made you think about the nature of time.

She had not expected this. Now, incredibly, he was saying something about T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets. ‘Yes, I know them,’ she said, and smiled imperceptibly as she thought— A philosopher pap! A philosopher King!

‘Do you know Ansel Adams?’ he said. ‘Do you know his work? The stuff he did in Yosemite?’

‘I’ve heard of him,’ she said. Her heart was pounding.

‘I’d like to do stuff like that…’

‘Are you married?’ she said, surprising herself.

The question took him by surprise too. He smiled and looked at the thing on his thick finger. ‘I was,’ he said. ‘Well, strictly speaking I still am. We’re separated. Why?’

She shrugged. ‘Do you live on your own?’

‘Yes, I do,’ he said. ‘Unfortunately. I wish I didn’t.’

He was looking her in the eye when he said that. In the frayed, neglected space, she felt her pulse swell with terrible energy in her throat. For the past twenty-four hours it had been like that.

The next morning she was late into work. She had been to the doctor—the incessant heavy tambour of her heart had started to frighten her. He made her unbutton her shirt and placed the heatless milled-steel head of his stethoscope on the skin where it started to slope into her left breast. He pumped up the sleeve of the sphygmograph until it was fiercely tight on her arm. He said it was nothing serious, and prescribed her some pills.

The paps were still there, on their strip of marble. Fraser was with them now—the security men seemed to have forgiven him—and to her surprise she found herself swerving off her path towards the front desk and walking up to him. She had no idea what she was going to say. Stepping away from the others, he spoke first. ‘Morning,’ he said, smiling. He looked at his watch. ‘Late, aren’t you?’ The other paps eyed her with interest—the shortish skirt, the slightly saucy shoes. She had taken time, that morning, to decide what to wear.

‘I’ve been to the doctor,’ she volunteered.

‘Nothing serious, I hope.’

She shook her head. ‘Any sign of Jane Green?’

‘Not yet,’ Fraser said. He was still smiling.

She stood there for a few seconds.

‘Well…’ she said.

The fact was, now that the security men were willing to have him in the lobby, there was no point him hiding in the staff cloakroom.

‘I’ll see you later,’ she said, and walked the twenty metres, under the twinkling inverted wedding cake, to the front desk.

She wondered whether she would see him later. For the next hour or so her eyes kept sliding towards the posse of paps. He was never looking at her, though two or three times her eyes met those of one of the others—a younger man, with well-gelled hair and pointy sideburns, and white leather shoes that were pointy too. Eventually she stopped looking, fearful of meeting the pointy-shoed man’s eyes again.

Feeling slightly low, she went for lunch and when she got back, she found him—him is Fraser—sitting in the staff cloakroom.

‘I know I shouldn’t be in here,’ he said.

‘That’s okay.’

‘It’s just,’ he went on, ‘if I’m in here, I’ll get a different shot from the others.’

‘Okay,’ she said. She was staring at him. Her heart was walloping again.

‘They’re all going to have the same shot,’ Fraser said.

‘Yes.’

‘If I’m in here, I’ll get something different.’

Yes, you just said that, she thought.

She hoped all this stuff about shots was just a silly excuse to come and see her. However, he was now saying that if his unique shot was somehow superior to their set of very similar shots, his would be the one all the papers would take.

‘I understand,’ she said shortly. She wished he would stop talking about it.

He smiled.

Then she said, ‘What if she gets smuggled out through the kitchens or something?’

‘Oh, she probably will be smuggled out through the kitchens,’ he said.

‘She will?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then why are you all here, in the lobby?’

‘We’re not,’ he said. ‘There are—what? — five of us here? We’re the awkward squad. We’re taking a punt. We’re hoping she’ll try to wrong-foot the pack by just walking straight out through the lobby.’

‘The pack?’

‘Most of the others are outside.’ He smiled. ‘You think I’m making this up, don’t you? Have a look then. Do you want to have a look? Let’s have a look.’

It felt strange to be walking somewhere with him, to be out in the wind and traffic of Park Lane. Turning into the street at the side of the hotel, they passed the sombre entrance of the ‘State Rooms’, and further on some of her fellow employees smoking in a sticky doorway. They traversed the moaning out-vents of the heating system, and a vast expanse of steel shutter. Then they turned into Park Street, and saw several dozen photographers— a hedgehog of telephoto lenses on the pavement opposite the service entrance, marshalled by a lone, tired-looking policeman.

She laughed with surprise.

He made her laugh with stories of the exploits of sweatily desperate paps. He told her the story of a friend of his, Ed O’Keefe, who used to work for a national tabloid and was sent by his editor to doorstep Ian Hislop in the village where he lived. He was told to get a shot of Hislop laughing to illustrate a piece on a natural disaster. He arrived in the village on Friday afternoon. There was no sign of Hislop. Nor was there any sign of him on Saturday. Finally, on Sunday morning, he emerged. He was on his way to church and he said, ‘Who the fuck are you? What do you want?’ Ed O’Keefe explained that he just needed a shot of him smiling. Hislop told him to fuck off, and went on his way. For the next week, Hislop wouldn’t stop scowling, and finally poor Ed—unwashed, unshaved, and sore from sleeping in his car—headed back to London to face the wrath of his editor. Then, just as he was leaving, his engine started spewing smoke and exploded, and Hislop, who was watching him leave, exploded wth laughter, and, ignoring the flames, the quick-thinking pap whipped out his Nikon and got the shot.