Paul Murray - An Evening of Long Goodbyes

‘I wouldn’t worry about Bel,’ Laura said. ‘She can take care of herself. Half of our school were like completely afraid of her.’

‘I’d like to believe that,’ I said dolefully. ‘Honestly, though, if you’d seen some of the goons she’s brought home over the last year — I say, no offence, Frank, old fellow,’ clapping him on the shoulder.

‘Maybe you should write a play,’ Laura said.

‘Ha ha,’ I said scowlingly.

‘No, but think about it. You want to get back into your house, okay? Well, like who lives there now? Disadvantaged Artists, right?’

‘I’m not following,’ I said.

‘Well, I mean you already look totally Disadvantaged, like with those scuzzy dungarees…’

‘That’s true,’ I mused. ‘And I do live here , with a reformed drug addict and Frank.’

Frank butted in rather pointedly to ask if we could please watch the video now.

‘Jeepers!’ Laura said. ‘I totally forgot.’

‘What video?’ I said.

‘ Titanic ,’ she said, taking a plastic box from her handbag. ‘Frank’s never seen it, can you believe it?’

‘I haven’t either,’ I said.

‘You haven’t ?’ Laura’s jaw dropped. ‘I can’t believe it!’

‘I don’t know if it’s your type of thing, Charlie,’ Frank put in.

‘If you like films, you can’t not like Titanic ,’ Laura told him.

‘I’m just not sure it’s Charlie’s type of thing,’ Frank said.

‘Well, we don’t have to watch it now. I’m having loads of fun.’

‘Maybe we could play a game,’ I proposed. ‘Like charades.’

‘Let’s watch it now,’ Frank said heavily.

I dimmed the lantern and squeezed back in beside Laura. Frank was sitting in his armchair with an inordinately put-out expression. Perhaps he was wishing we had been left alone to varnish the tallboy as had been planned originally; I suppose Laura was something of an acquired taste, although as she snuggled against me, heat seeping from her thigh, I did wonder fleetingly if perhaps I hadn’t been over-hasty in my dismissal of her before… but then I remembered Mirela’s hand on mine, and I caught a hold of myself.

At first I wasn’t sure what Frank had meant by this not being my sort of thing, as I had found myself quite moved by A Night to Remember , the 1958 depiction of the fatal voyage — a sort of floating paean to the stiff upper lip, in which passengers and crew, all apparently drawn from the British upper classes, sink very politely and with as little as possible fuss to the bottom of the ocean. Titanic ’s early stages bore scant resemblance to A Night to Remember , however. There was a ship, all right; but instead of it sinking, we seemed to be spending all our time trailing around after a couple of dull teenagers: an English Rose type, played by one Kate Winslet, and a slow-witted painter she meets on board, played by a fellow who looked remarkably like one of those dogs with the squashed-up noses beloved of wealthy dowagers. They went to a ball, then capered around in steerage with a bunch of Irish people. After a while the Rigbert’s ran out so I started drinking Hobson’s from the refrigerator.

I doubted that Honor Blackman would have let anyone paint her nude only a few hours after meeting him; and she certainly wouldn’t have let him have his way with her in the back seat of a car — the back seat of a car , I ask you, on the most expensive ship in history –

‘Isn’t there supposed to be an iceberg in this?’ I said.

Laura was weeping quietly. Frank coughed uncomfortably and wouldn’t meet my eye.

The accursed ship didn’t sink for a full three hours. By the time it did, I was feeling so traumatized that even watching Dogface die offered little consolation. The dialogue, the acting, the vast emptiness of the whole endeavour! Was that what passed for cinema these days? I felt like I had been violated; violated by a team of accountants.

Laura, prostrated by grief, lay weeping on my lap. Frank stared stolidly at the credits, over which, as a coup de grâce , a cat or cats were being strangled to the effect that ‘My Heart Will Go On’, which at this moment in time was not a sentiment I could endorse.

It was several minutes before I could summon the energy to speak. ‘Frank,’ I said palely, ‘I’m going to go to bed now.’

‘Fair enough,’ Frank said.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I just don’t think I can bear to even have my eyes open any more tonight.’

‘That’s all right, Charlie,’ Frank said kindly. ‘I understand.’

‘What about…?’ I nodded down at the desolate figure crying into my trousers.

‘Don’t worry, Charlie, I’ll take care of her.’

‘Thanks, old man,’ wanly gripping his arm. ‘Thanks.’

Extricating myself, I went to my room and lay down in the blackness. But there was little hope of sleeping. The deathliness of the awful film had whipped my present fears into a frenzy, and reawoken old fears that had hitherto lain dormant: and now they joined forces with the phantasmagoric powers of the Rigbert’s to assail me, flapping down like bats from the spinning walls. I covered my head; I shrunk to the top of the mattress, tormented by visions of disaster and decay — of Harry fingering the shiny buttons of his waistcoat, of great crows perched on the chimneys of the house, of Bel adrift on that Golem ship, surrounded by cardboard people who recited dead words and would fall to pieces as soon as the iceberg appeared… I couldn’t bear it: I couldn’t bear to think of her there alone, alone!

And so — even though I knew I would regret it in the morning — I found myself reaching for what, in my desperation, seemed the only lifeline left to me. I went to the telephone, and dialled MacGillycuddy’s number.

It was well after midnight, and the voice on the other end, when it finally picked up, was far from happy at being disturbed. ‘Who is this? C, is that you?’

‘Damn it, MacGillycuddy, I’m not in the mood for your games. I have a job for you, if you have a gap in your snaky portfolio.’

‘Have you been drinking?’ MacGillycuddy asked reproachfully.

‘Yes I have. Now do you want to hear about this or don’t you?’

He yawned. ‘It’s not Frank again, is it?’

‘Of course it’s not Frank. If it were Frank, I — look, it’s different to last time, it’s this fellow Harry —’

‘Banging your sister, is he?’ MacGillycuddy chuckled. ‘Stealing your furniture too?’

I swore silently and wrapped the phone flex tight around my hand. ‘It’s different to last time,’ I said again, struggling to keep the rage from my voice. ‘Bel’s — I’m worried Bel’s not well. I think this Harry might have something to do with it. I want you to keep an eye on her. On him too. Find out who he is, what he wants. No fiddling around this time. Keep an eye on both of them and make sure no one’s… taking advantage.’

From the receiver came the sound of MacGillycuddy sucking his teeth. Finally he spoke. ‘Can’t do it,’ he said.

‘Can’t do it? What do you mean? Why can’t you do it?’

‘Confidential,’ MacGillycuddy said.

I reeled back. I had expected contrariness; I had expected some gloating, even; but I hadn’t foreseen a flat refusal. Confidential : who would have thought the word could strike such dread into a heart? Confidential : it meant that whatever dark game was unfolding at Amaurot, MacGillycuddy was already in it up to his neck — MacGillycuddy, whose appearance in the recent history of the house was an omen more ill-starred than any black cat or screeching peacock or cracked mirror…