Tom Rachman - The Rise & Fall of Great Powers

She poured, but refrained from sipping for a minute. She sat on the oxblood sofa, he on its twin opposite, a glass coffee table between them, stacked with Country Life magazines. “I saw my parents recently,” she said. (How peculiar to use that phrase, “my parents,” in reference to Paul and Sarah.) She recounted what Paul had said about sending money to Sarah for years, and that Humphrey had remembered this, too. But what had Sarah spent it on?

“Well,” he answered. “On me.”

“What?”

“The woman, you may recall, was a bit stuck on me. The only way she figured to keep her hooks in was monthly funding,” he said. “Your father made those payments directly into Sarah’s account, but she refused to just wire it nicely along. Insisted on handing it over in person — her way of clinging on. Meant I had to tell her every place I moved. And when she turned up I put on a good show — just enough rejection to keep her interested.”

Tooly paused, trying to absorb this. But something didn’t fit. “You took me everywhere you went. Why didn’t you guys just plant me somewhere, then? The checks were coming in anyway.”

“Plant you where? If you started sobbing in a corner somewhere, then sooner or later someone telephones Daddy. Better to make you merry and compliant. And there was Humph to keep you busy.”

“Was he earning off me, too?”

“No, no. Humph was an unpaid volunteer. I told you, a sad and lonely man. And everything was fine until you went and turned twenty-one, at which point your father rudely stopped paying. Though the whole thing was a bit tired by then. Humph was terrified,” he recalled, laughing, “that I might take you with me once the money stopped, that I’d do something awful with you. You remember how I tied your shoelaces that day?”

“Of course.”

“Couldn’t have you running after me and making a scene on the Upper West Side, could I.”

“I know you’re trying to get a reaction from me.”

“Well, of course. What else do people talk for?”

“You weren’t just keeping me sweet. I was your friend.”

“You were my salary. And, since you had to be around, I put you to use. Now and then, you came in handy. Though never nearly as handy as you thought.”

“But you weren’t living off me,” she insisted. “You had all that other work.”

“Such as?”

“I don’t know. Like in Barcelona, you were helping that guy with his factory. Those Romanian gangsters were hassling him, and you fixed it. Right?”

“What an imagination!”

“You told me that.”

“Like I said, what an imagination. My Barcelona businessman was just another citizen, a little excitable, a little greedy. If he wanted to believe I was a one-man Mafia, who was I to disappoint him?”

“But I saw you dealing with tons of scary guys.”

“I met a few over the years. That’s not to say I was mixed up with them. Thugs are not famously strong in the forward-planning department — why would I tie my fate to sediment like them? Maybe certain souls have mistaken me for a magician, the man who’ll get around the rules, fix the competition, grant them all the power they never deserved. And maybe some gave me funds in the fantasy. All that ever produced, little duck, was a timely reason for me to find my next town.”

“But I thought … Venn, I waited years to do something with you.”

“What were we going to do together? Your dot-com with those hapless college kids?”

“You’re the one who encouraged me to figure out something with them. Wasn’t that the point, for me to find us opportunities?”

“I sent you into people’s houses, Tooly, like one sends a child to collect pretty shells on the beach: to get the kid out of your hair. You weren’t about to come back with anything useful. Actually, you probably should’ve stuck with the lawyer. You’d be comfortable now.”

“I needed to hook up with someone to get anywhere in life? I’m that useless, you think?”

“Well, how would you say you’re faring now?”

“I know you’re just giving me a hard time, Venn. But I want you to know that I paid attention to what you said. All that stuff. About managing without other people. I’m that way now. We really are similar.”

“Couldn’t be more different. I only said that because it kept you in love with me.”

“Come on — this coldhearted thing isn’t convincing me.”

“Really? What am I doing wrong?” he asked, winking.

“What you’re doing wrong is that I remember. I remember how you spent your own money to fly me and Humph along whenever you moved. How you paid for whatever apartment we were in. You weren’t living off me. You completely took care of me. For years.”

“That was Humph. I never paid for one of your flights, your food, your rent. You only assumed it was me, and I saw no need to say otherwise.”

“Why would he do that?”

“To make himself necessary. Otherwise, babysitting was a job anyone could’ve done.”

“But after New York,” she protested, “you kept supporting me.”

“How? I haven’t seen you in years.”

“My passport,” she answered, meaning the bank card he’d secreted there, and the account that had served as her safety net for years, and with which she’d bought World’s End.

“Never touched your passport — Humph thought I’d spirit you away from him if I had it. Which was crazy. I could’ve sold you, I guess. But how much was I seriously going to get?”

“I know it was you who set up that card, Venn.”

“Just tell me what I did,” he said, “and I’ll be happy to take credit.”

Harriet entered the library. “Oh, darling, you are useless!” she told her husband, picking the infant off the carpet. “You just left her asleep on the floor — I should call social services.”

“She was so adorable. I couldn’t move her.”

“Actually,” Tooly said, standing, “you know what? We were just calculating that I won’t make it back in time if I leave tomorrow morning. I’m sorry, Harriet, but I should get going.”

“Sure,” she said indifferently, and carried the baby upstairs.

Tooly collected her shoulder bag from the guesthouse and walked around Beenblossom Lodge. Venn stood in wait, leaned against his black Range Rover.

“You really affected my life,” she said. “Everything I chose to do, how I am now. I think you changed me more than anyone I ever met.”

“Did I?”

“Why do you think I was in love with you?”

“You obviously were.”

“How come you never tried anything?”

“I’m not an animal,” he said. “I’m not someone who just launches himself at any girl on the premises. Anyway, you’re ugly, aren’t you.”

“You’re just being cruel now.”

“If you don’t want to know, don’t ask the question. Think of it this way: if you’d been attractive, I’d have had you and got bored (fast in your case, I’m guessing), and you’d never have lasted.”

“I won’t hassle you again.”

“Thank goodness for that. Wouldn’t want you going the same way as the ferrets.” He embraced her, locking his arms around her lower back, inhaling to expand his chest and compress hers, his knuckles cracking as he squeezed the air out of her. “An absolute pleasure,” he said, kissing her forehead. “Don’t ever fucking do this again.”

Her high beams swept across dark tree trunks, burst out into the roadway. She drove toward Cork, gripping the wheel, then turned into a closed Morris Oil to calm down. But she had to escape this place, so drove onward, tire treads kicking up pebbles.

In a hotel room outside the airport, she sat naked on the bed, running her fingers over her ribs, his grip there, that kiss on her brow. It was as if she had brushed aside a lock of hair and found an eye, a throbbing eye, a hideous growth blinking at her, repulsive yet her own, fed by her own blood. This is how he seemed, incorporated into her yet monstrous. The shower wouldn’t cleanse her. She left her muddy clothing in the hotel bathroom, abandoning her entire outfit there, and arrived for her flight hours early, just to be among strangers at the terminal.