David Szalay - Spring

When it was finally over and the music was on again, Frank Moss, who had had a lift from Huntingdon in the front of the horse transport, took him aside. ‘Top speech,’ he said.

‘Yeah, ta, Mossy…’

‘We have got to introduce you to Nigel. Listen, there’s a meeting in Eastbourne in a few weeks—how about then? And what about being on the platform? You’ll have to say a few words. Alright?’

‘What do you mean a few words?’ Simon said, watching suspiciously as Dermot, one of the lads from the yard, went over to where Kelly was sitting and started to talk to her.

‘If we’re serious about this,’ Mossy said, ‘you need more profile. They love you here. That’s obvious. You’d be a shoo-in here…’

‘Well most of em work for me…’

‘This is where you start from,’ Mossy whispered excitedly. ‘This is your heartland. Everyone in politics needs a heartland, Si. It’s step by step. You start small, then you take the next step. Eastbourne, Sunday second of April. Put it in the diary.’ Then he said quietly, ‘Everything okay with the stewards?’

‘Yeah I think so,’ Simon muttered. ‘I hope so.’

The Huntingdon stewards had had him in. They had had some questions for him about the mare. Standing there with young Tom, he had said that yes, she had shown striking improvement on previous form, he did not know why—perhaps it was the onset of spring? — and he wanted to be as helpful as possible with their inquiries. When the stewards said they wanted to speak to the owners, he said that since they weren’t expecting her to win, unfortunately they weren’t there. Then Francis Moss stepped in to testify that that very morning Mr Miller had told him he didn’t think the horse had any hope of winning. The stewards said they would look into the matter. ‘Okay,’ Simon said. ‘And if you have any questions just…’ With his thumb and little finger he mimed a phone.

There is a lock-in, obviously. The Plough, with its horse-brasses and low beams, is still quite full at two.

*

In the early evening, with unprecedented promptness, Freddy had paid James the £5,000 he owed him for his share in the mare in the form of a novel-sized wad of £20 notes, which they proceeded to leave in a thick trail through the West End, finally picking up a flock of skimpily dressed Norwegian girls in a Mayfair nightclub. Two taxis whisked them all to Chelsea, where Freddy was their host.

The tall eighteenth century townhouse in which Freddy lives is not, of course, his own. Impressive from the outside—spilling out of the taxis onto Cheyne Walk the Norwegian ladies were palpably excited by its size and splendour—it is less promising once you step through the front door. Freddy’s landlord Anselm inherited it in the Eighties in a leaky, mouldering state, and has since done absolutely nothing to it. The whole place smells mustily of dust and wet plaster. Inside, Freddy starts showing off at the piano, and while the others surround him or slip off to explore the house—naughty laughter in the unlit stairwells—James finds himself on the smaller of the sofas with twenty-two-year-old Maia, who had been taking a touchingly obvious interest in him from the start. (At one point she had placed his hands on her sparrowy diaphragm—what had that been about?) He is very drunk. Things have started sliding around, not least his voice, and she is sitting on his knee and kissing him. Her strong little tongue is moving in his mouth as they slide down onto the seat of the sofa. There, out of sight of the others, she whispers, ‘I have a fiancé. Hic! In Norway. So we’ll just have a one night stand. Okay?’ In spite of the hiccups, she starts kissing him again, more forcefully, holding his head with her hands.

There is no shortage of empty rooms in the huge house. There are rooms overlooking the Thames. There are rooms overlooking the tops of mature trees. There are rooms full of antique furniture. There are rooms with four-poster beds…

‘No,’ he says, prising her off him. ‘No, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’ He touches her nose and smiles. ‘I’m sorry.’ She says nothing, and for a few minutes they just lie there on the sofa. Then she stands up and joins the others at the piano. She seems sad, and watching her he wonders whether he should have taken her upstairs and fucked her in one of the four-poster beds. He wonders whether he wants to do that—does he want to do that?

He is still watching her and wondering when the door opens and Anselm is there in a satin duvet of a dressing-gown, his soft white hair askew, squinting in the light.

‘Fréderic,’ pronounced the French way, ‘would you mind keeping it down?’ he says petulantly from the threshold. ‘Please.’

He seems overwhelmed and flustered by the sight of all those Nordic limbs, those laughing aquamarine eyes, those white-blonde heads. (Though Maia and one or two of the others are dark.) Immediately playing a kind of fanfare— tan-tada-tan-tada-TA —Freddy says, ‘Ladies, this is my landlord. Won’t you join us, Anselm?’

Though the massed ladies are making him shy, one thing Anselm does not seem is surprised. This is the sort of thing he expects from Fréderic; indeed it is the sort of thing that Fréderic encourages him to expect. Anselm is under the impression that his tenant is an international playboy of princely lineage, and though he would never admit it, he is flattered just to be involved in the life of such a person, and to be thought of as a friend by him. He loves telling his other friends about ‘the prince.’ To them, he patronises him. ‘He’s a drunken sod,’ he says, showing off. ‘On the other hand, he is quite a laugh to have around.’ Except at times like this—perhaps twice a week. ‘Just keep it down, please,’ he mutters. ‘It is four o’clock.’

*

Slumped over the wheel of the Range Rover, Simon has to shut one eye to see anything at all. He sang the last number— ‘I did it myyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyaway’— to the empty pub. Then, still mumbling the words of ‘My Way,’ he stumbled out into oodles of moonlight. The moon was queasily full. In the kitchen he tries to work out how much money there is in the envelope. The problem is he has to hold each note at arm’s length to see what it is and even then they are just fuzzy oblongs. It was his intention to watch the video of the two o’clock at Huntingdon a few times. When he has a winner he tends to watch the video a few times. There was… something very nice… about watching the video… when you knew… when you knew you were… If only, he sometimes thought… If only… If only…

*

James wakes up on a musty four-poster with early morning light pouring in through the windows. He is fully dressed. He looks at his watch— it is eight o’clock and he has not slept more than a few hours. For a minute or two he just sits on the edge of the bed, feeling like a Victorian ghost in the tall, thickly ivied house. The sound of trees swishing in the wind, otherwise total silence. He has things to do. He has to walk Hugo for one thing. It is turning into a habit, spending the night away from home and leaving poor Hugo to tough it out. He must stop doing that. In his jacket pocket he finds his wallet. Sitting on the edge of the four-poster, listening to the swishing trees, he opens it. There is less than £4,000 in there. Ergo yesterday he spent more than £1,000 on a night out. Under the circumstances, that was perhaps unwise. Oh well. He pulls on his hard leather shoes.

On his way out, he looks into Freddy’s room. It is as he thought. There are two people in the bed, two heads on the pillows — Freddy’s half-bald head and a head of dark hair. He heard them. They were so uninhibitedly loud they woke him from his dead drunk sleep. He shuts the door and tiptoes down the stairs. It was a prurient thing for him to do, to look, and he wishes he hadn’t. Somehow, though, it upsets him slightly that Freddy had the one night stand with Maia. He is not jealous. It is not that. (He is pleased that he did not sleep with her himself—he would have felt terrible, terrible, if he had.) No, it is a matter of piqued vanity. He had thought that she liked him, specifically him, when in fact she just wanted to get laid.