Paul Murray - An Evening of Long Goodbyes

Frank barely said a word the whole way out. His knuckles bulged whitely on the wheel, and I confess that I too felt a certain frisson as we left the city for the coast road. Wind ruffled in through the broad slat of the open window; buildings gave way to trees, flicking past match-pale; to our left the sea surged introspectively in and out, like a grey ghost pacing its corridor. And now here was the iron gate, and the old horse chestnut with the scar where Father had hit it late one night, from which a covey of pigeons broke as Frank took us up the bumpy driveway.

‘Looks well, the old place,’ he said woodenly, as the roof and upper floors of Amaurot began to peep over the trees.

‘Mmm…’ It seemed bigger than I remembered: I suppose because of spending so much time in Bonetown, in that cramped apartment. The closer we got, the higher the walls seemed to tower, the heavier the house’s shadow bore down on us and the rusty white van… And then, from behind us, came a cheery Parp! Parp!

‘What the blazes…?’

‘Looks like someone’s drivin round that old banger of your dad’s, Charlie.’

‘Thank you, I can see that.’ The bottle-green Mercedes was out on the lawn, white-blue smoke pouring merrily from the exhaust pipe as it trundled round in low-speed circles. ‘What does he think he’s doing?’

‘Hello there! Hi there! Hythloday!’ We were being saluted by a figure in a tweed cap and old-fashioned leather motoring goggles.

‘It’s that ponce Harry,’ Frank said darkly.

‘Just ignore him,’ I said. ‘That oik — no one’s taken that car out in twenty years. If it explodes under him, it’ll be too good for him.’ Balefully I sat back in my seat. ‘Taking liberties like that. And who does he think he is in those ridiculous goggles, Toad of Toad Hall?’

Lapsing into a bad-tempered silence, we drove on and pulled up outside the portico, where we got out, took the wheelchair from the back of the van and set it down by the steps. I had lost my house-keys some weeks ago down the back of Frank’s sofa, which was the Bermuda Triangle of the apartment; however, if memory served, Mrs P kept a spare set down here under the laburnum… I was casting about on my hands and knees when I heard the engine restart behind me. ‘What are you doing?’ I said. Frank had climbed back behind the wheel of the van. ‘Aren’t you coming in?’

‘Ah no, Charlie,’ bobbing his head evasively, ‘no, better get back to the old work —’

‘But it’s Sunday,’ I protested. ‘Don’t you want a cup of tea, even?’

‘No, I just remembered this thing I have to do…’

‘Well, can’t it wait a minute? We can’t just leave the damned wheelchair sitting there, help me carry it inside.’ He gunned the motor, drowning me out, and with a fugitive expression began to reverse the van and turn back down the driveway. ‘For heaven’s sake, she’s not going to bite you!’ I called after him, to no avail. ‘How am I supposed to get home?’ Too late: the indicator blinked and the van nosed out on to the road. For a moment I wished that I had gone back with him

Cursing him, I went back to my search for the keys. I was still searching when the elderly Mercedes came chugging up a moment later.

‘Hey there, Charles,’ Harry said, dismounting. ‘Long time no see.’

‘There’s a reason for that, you oik,’ I muttered under my breath.

‘What’s that?’

I straightened up and shot him a cold, reproving look. His hair was more annoying than ever, but he seemed to have traded in his revolutionary attire: instead of combat trousers he was wearing pantaloons of a robust tweed, and the tedious peasant jacket had been replaced by a waistcoat with an appalling Aztec motif. ‘What do you think you’re doing, driving that car around?’ I said.

‘Just thought I’d take it for a spin,’ he said mildly. ‘Seems a shame to keep a beautiful machine like that cooped up in a stuffy old garage.’

‘That car is a museum piece,’ I said. ‘It is not meant to be driven.’

‘Oh, come on!’ he laughed. ‘Of course it is. That’s what cars are for, not sitting around under a tarpaulin.’ He ran a gloved hand affectionately over the bottle-green flank. ‘It still runs like a dream. All it needed was a little tinkering.’

‘Be that as it may,’ I said in a tight voice. ‘I’m telling you now that that car is a priceless antique, and I would prefer if it were left alone.’

‘Suit yourself,’ he shrugged.

I turned my back on him and resumed my search beneath the flowerpot.

‘You know, if you’re looking for the keys, we don’t keep them there any more,’ he said.

Slowly, I rose again to my feet, clenching my teeth.

‘Don’t worry, though, I can let you in. But hey — you haven’t met the new inmates, have you?’

‘What, more Disadvantaged?’ I said witheringly.

‘Stay there a second.’ He jogged over to the undergrowth by the garage, and started making a clucking noise.

‘Look here,’ I said, ‘I’m in rather a hurry —’ That is, I began to say it; but then, out of the bushes, strutted the peacocks, and my jaw dropped.

They were barely recognizable as the vermin-infested creatures I had left behind: in fact, I don’t think they had ever looked so handsome. Every vein of their nacreous feathers shone, every eye on their fanned tails glistered; and running about and cheeping in front of them were what appeared to be small, very mobile balls of dust.

‘What,’ I said incredulously, ‘you got new ones?’

‘In a manner of speaking,’ he said. ‘Rosa had them last week — we call the taller one Rosa, after Rosa Luxemburg?’

‘She never did that before,’ I said, scrutinizing the peacock in question.

‘Well, I thought when I got here they looked a bit down, so I changed their diet a little, fixed up their coop — I used to work with birds when I lived in Guatemala. I guess I must have put them in the mood for love, because next thing you know Rosa has these two little bundles of joy, little Che and Chavez.’

What was he doing to my house?

‘Yes, well, you must be very proud,’ I said. ‘Look, if you wouldn’t mind letting me in now —’

‘Oh, sorry,’ he said. He bounded up the steps and turned his key in the lock, then bounded down again to help me carry in the wheelchair. We set it down inside the door. I looked at him. He smiled at me gormlessly.

‘I can manage from here,’ I told him.

‘Oh, right,’ he said. ‘See you later, then.’

He ambled back down to the lawn; for a moment I stood there in the threshold, contemplating the hallway. Everything appeared to be just as I had left it: there was the poinsettia, there was the Brancusi, there the glass frieze of Actaeon threw its queer curlicues of light on to the floor. And yet in some unaccountable way it felt different — unconvincing, almost, that curious sense of dissonance one gets when one finally visits a place seen many times in photographs. Then, as though specifically to allay these misgivings, Mrs P bustled out of the kitchen with a tray of butterfly cakes and a carafe of orange juice.

‘Master Charles!’ she cried. ‘Is it really you? Please, you will take a butterfly cake?’

‘Thanks,’ I said. This was a bit more like it.

‘How long you have waited to come to see me?’ she scolded. ‘Why have you waited so long?’

‘Oh, you know how it is,’ I said carelessly. ‘How’s things? How is the old place?’

‘Ay, Master Charles, we miss you very much,’ she sighed, moving behind me to take my coat. ‘Now everyone is working, everything is rush rush, nobody has time to sit, enjoy a nice meal… But you too, Master Charles, you are important too, eh? Now that you work, make money…’