Paul Murray - An Evening of Long Goodbyes

Finally, towards the end of April, things came to a head. Patsy was travelling to Rome for a couple of weeks to do some work for her thesis, something to do with Raphael and his courtesans. I had thrown together a send-off party, and had managed to pip Hoyland’s rival party by hiring Patsy’s favourite local jazz trio for the occasion. It was quite a soirée, or so I am told. The night was sweltering, presided over by a full silver moon; all kinds of carousing took place out on the lawn, including (allegedly) a striptease by Bel’s old schoolmate Bunty Chopin, right down to a couple of peacock feathers.

But Hoyland and I cared nothing for the celebrations. For the entire night we sat staring balefully at each other from armchairs in opposite corners of the recital room, rising only to top up our whiskeys. From time to time Patsy would breeze in from the garden where the trio had set up and drape herself over one of us, with the express intention of infuriating the undraped party in the opposing armchair, which it invariably did.

At four o’clock, both Hoyland and I arrived at the sideboard to find that only a single measure of whiskey remained in the decanter. We looked at each other, and the rest of the party — the conversations, the bragging trumpet, the hoots from the lawn — seemed to fall away. There was only the two of us: deadlocked.

‘Help yourself,’ I said.

‘No no, please,’ he returned.

‘My dear fellow, you’re the guest.’

‘It’s fine, really, I’ve had quite enough.’

‘Oh, you have, have you?’

‘Yes, as a matter of fact I have.’

‘Well, so have I, in that case.’

‘Well, “in that case” I’d be interested to hear what you intend to do about it.’

‘I — ah… that is…’ The ball was in my court but I had gone completely blank. The whiskey had turned my brain into a furnace of dry heat. All around me I could hear whispers like the crackle of kindling, and Patsy whistling ‘Sophisticated Lady’ as she drew up the hall — when I saw that as luck would have it someone had left her gloves on the piano. I seized one of them, and threw it down at Hoyland’s feet. A gasp went around the room. ‘I’m challenging you to a duel, that’s what,’ I said.

Hoyland looked surprised. ‘Really?’ he said.

‘Well…’ I said uncertainly. Just then Patsy came in and asked a girl on the periphery what was going on. ‘Charles wanted Hoyland to finish the whiskey, but Hoyland thought Charles ought to have it, so Charles challenged Hoyland to a duel,’ the girl said.

‘Oh,’ Patsy said. She sounded impressed.

‘Yes,’ I said to Hoyland.

‘Good,’ said Hoyland, who had had time to regain his composure and was superciliously buffing his cufflinks. ‘Swords or pistols?’

‘Pistols, obviously,’ I said, adding contemptuously, ‘ Swords .’

The arrangements were quickly made. The antique pistols were brought down from the study, where Father had kept them loaded in his desk — a secret Bel and I weren’t supposed to know about. Solemnly, we chose our seconds: Boyd Snooks was mine, and Fluffy Elgin Hoyland’s. After trying vainly to talk us out of it, Pongo agreed to adjudicate. Other than these parties, everybody, including Patsy, was asked to remain inside. At five, we left the house by the back door.

We strode over the long grass to the gazebo, recently vacated by the jazz trio. Above us the sky was tinged with pink and a few early birds chirruped in the branches. Fluffy Elgin couldn’t stop giggling. Hoyland blinked at me from under the apple tree on which he’d hung his blazer. Pongo’s voice, when he spoke, was high and taut and cut into the quiet of the morning. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, summoning us together before the gazebo and requesting that we shake hands, before holding up the mahogany box: ‘Choose your weapons.’

The pistol was heavy and dull with a long barrel. Pongo ushered me into place, standing with my back to Hoyland’s. I realized how cold it was. Every detail of the garden blazed at me.

‘When I give the word, you must take ten paces. Then, at my signal, turn and face one another. When I throw my hat in the air, you may shoot. Understood? Right. Commence pacing. One…’

As I took my paces, stretching out my leg stiff at the knee, dew soaking the cuffs of my trousers, I did wonder what exactly I was doing. But it all made a kind of sense: in fact, a singular kind of sense.

‘Two… three…’

Every element of my life had, at this moment, cohered. If the worst came to the worst, and I died here, it would be in my own garden, surrounded by friends, for the honour of the woman I knew beyond a doubt to be my true and eternal love. As deaths went, this didn’t seem a bad one.

‘Five… Six…’

Bother, I realized I hadn’t said goodbye to Bel. She was away putting up lights for a show. It was probably just as well — she tended to be a wet blanket when it came to parties and I daresay would have frowned on duels too; furthermore she disapproved strongly of Patsy Olé, whom she referred to as the Dalkey Chameleon. I made a mental note to mention her in my dying words.

‘Eight…’ Pongo called. ‘Nine…’

Fluffy Elgin’s giggles had turned into hiccups and she had to sit down.

‘Ten… Oh hell, hang on a second…’

There was a padding sound and then silence. Moments passed. I stood trembling with the muzzle cold against my cheek. I stared into a clump of peonies, emptily taking in the form of the leaf, the gleaming stem, the petals. Fluffy hiccuped dolefully.

‘I say, Boyd,’ I called out, after a little more time had passed.

‘Yes?’ Boyd replied from the log where he was trying to get Fluffy to hold her breath.

‘What’s going on?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Boyd said. ‘Pongo suddenly ran off somewhere.’

‘What?’ Hoyland’s voice wafted over from his position under the larches.

‘I think he had to get something from inside,’ Boyd said. ‘I shouldn’t think he’ll be long.’ He started humming to himself.

‘It’s deuced cold,’ I observed.

‘Can’t we sit down?’ Hoyland wanted to know. ‘Or turn around, at least?’

‘I don’t know,’ Boyd said. ‘You’d have to ask Pongo, he’s the adjudicator.’

We remained where we were. More birds joined in the tweeting. ‘The sun’s shining directly into my eyes,’ Hoyland complained. Somewhere a car raced down the road.

My teeth began to chatter.

‘Raaaaaah!’ Boyd exclaimed suddenly, making us all jump.

‘What on earth —’

‘I was trying to scare Fluffy,’ Boyd apologized.

‘Hiccup — hiccup — hiccup,’ Fluffy hiccuped miserably, twisting a peacock feather limply between her fingers.

‘This is ridiculous,’ I said and turned around, whereupon Hoyland immediately began jumping about shouting that I had forfeited the duel and that he was the winner by default.

‘Don’t be absurd,’ I said. ‘I’m going to find Pongo. This is no way to run a duel.’ I tossed my pistol under the apple trees and set off back towards the house, Hoyland scrambling after me.

Pongo wasn’t in the kitchen, nor was he in the dining room. Hoyland checked the library while I looked in the drawing room, but he wasn’t there either. He wasn’t one of the slumbering bodies in the recital room, nor was he among the mésalliances that had unfolded in the bedrooms.

‘It’s as if he’s disappeared,’ Hoyland said.

‘Very peculiar,’ I said.

‘I thought he’d been doing a very good job up until then,’ Hoyland said.

And then — just as we were about to abandon our search and call it a night — we found him. He was in the cloakroom, standing almost submerged in the layers of coats that hung on the back wall. His face was frozen in a remarkable expression, somewhere between astonishment and rapture. In his hand he held a triumphal-looking brandy. We asked him just what the blazes was going on; and he informed us, in a halting, wispy voice, that he had just been fellated by Patsy Olé.