Rupert Thomson - The Insult

I’d called round on Loots after my drink with Munck. Loots didn’t know I was coming, and his enthusiastic welcome startled me. I was still labouring up the stairs when he leaned over the banisters and shouted, ‘Blom, there’s someone here I want you to meet.’

On the landing he took my arm and led me into the apartment and down the corridor. He stopped me in front of his cork-tiled wall.

‘I want to introduce you to Juliet,’ he said. ‘She’s going to be my assistant.’

Juliet was a sex dummy, one of those plastic inflatable models with a mouth shaped like an O. She stood against the cork tiles with a look of shock on her face. I knew exactly how she felt. I’d been there myself.

‘What do you think?’ Loots said.

‘Does she have any experience?’

Loots laughed.

‘Why Juliet?’ I asked.

‘She’s beautiful — and young …’

I reached out and touched her. Her breasts were small and sharp, like ice-cream cones. ‘Loots,’ I said, ‘you’re going to have to buy her a bikini.’

He thought that was funny, too.

I explained why I’d dropped in. I wanted to know if I could borrow his car. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I’m not going to do the driving.’

Loots chuckled at the idea.

‘I’ve got someone to drive me,’ I said, leaving a silence that seemed suspicious, loaded with unanswered questions.

‘And who’s that?’ he asked, as he was supposed to.

I acted a little shy about it. ‘You remember that woman at the wedding —’

‘The one who stood you up?’

‘That’s her.’

‘And now she’s seen the error of her ways?’ Loots was shaking his head. ‘How do you do it, Blom?’

‘It’s only for tonight,’ I said. ‘I’ll bring it back first thing in the morning. Anyway, you won’t be needing it. You’ll be quite happy here — with Juliet.’

I was grinning as I turned the key in the ignition.

The first part was more difficult than I’d expected. It was the lights of other cars, their headlights as they came towards me: they literally blinded me for a moment. I had some problems with spacial relationships as well, though perhaps I was simply adjusting to a car that wasn’t mine. I turned out of Loots’ street, making for the Ring. I passed the blue neon sign of the Saskia Hotel, the Royal Gardens and the floodlit Doric columns of the National Philharmonic. I crossed the river west of the city centre. From the elevated road I could look down on the community housing of the 15th district: tower blocks and parked cars and meaningless areas of grass. Sometimes I thought I was driving too slowly. At other times I felt as though I was going to hit something or get pulled over. But nothing like that happened. In twenty minutes I was easing into the slow lane on the motorway and heading north.

The bright lights were all behind me now. I stepped on the accelerator. If a car got too close, I tilted the rear-view mirror so it couldn’t dazzle me. The motorway climbed into the hills and darkened. People always claimed this stretch of road was dangerous — but what was dangerous for everybody else was safe for me. I relaxed my neck and shoulders, leaning back against the headrest, straightening my arms. My white cane and dark glasses were lying on the floor behind my seat. If I was stopped, I’d give the police a false name and address (though not the same as the ones I’d given Arnold). If they tracked me down, I’d deny all knowledge of the incident. I’d look shocked, incredulous. ‘I’m blind,’ I’d say. ‘How on earth could I be driving?’ I’d be staring past the policeman’s shoulder and I’d be smiling at nothing. My head would probably be wobbling, too. ‘I can’t drive,’ I’d say. ‘There must be some mistake.’

The road was still climbing and I had to shift into third. There were patches of fog now. I felt as if someone was hurling rags at me; it made me want to duck. I took the next exit, a two-lane road that twisted eastwards through the hills. There wouldn’t be much traffic on it; I’d have it to myself. And it was then, as I saw the empty road ahead, the unbroken darkness on either side, that I had an inspiration. Obvious, really. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it before. Turn the headlights off. If only Visser could’ve seen me! With his earnest face and his Stalinesque moustache. My laughter filled the inside of the car.

For a while I just drove, not thinking at all. What a relief it was to be out of the city — away from the wide, grey streets, away from the grime and the decay. I was in a trance, half-dreaming, when I saw a car swing round the bend, its lights full-beam. It was in the middle of the road and heading straight towards me. At the last minute it swerved, tyres shrieking. I watched its tail-lights yo-yo in the rear-view mirror. Shake a soft-drinks can and pull the ring. That’s some indication of how my heart felt then. I could only suppose the driver hadn’t seen me. Still, nothing had come of it.

Not long afterwards a huge, veined leaf slapped on to the windscreen. I jumped, then grinned. I was wondering how they’d write that sound in Victor’s comic-books. SHLOK! maybe. Or WHAP! I stared at the leaf: a deformed hand, with five attempts at fingers. My dream was happening to leaves. There was a fizzing in my chest again. That narrow miss, and then the leaf. WHAP! I turned my wipers on and sent it skimming back into the night.

Slowly my thoughts spread sideways.

So. I was a suspect now. I could see how Munck (or Munck’s colleagues) might have arrived at that conclusion. I’d been the last person to see Nina alive. Add to that, I’d tried to make a run for it in the hotel (after registering under a false name). And I’d behaved suspiciously when called upon to identify her car. I even had a motive. It was an old motive, one of the oldest there was, but it was good enough. She’d told me she was leaving me. She’d said it was over. Jealousy, resentment, wounded pride — that was all it took. The circumstantial evidence was overwhelming. Once, when I was working in the bookshop, I’d picked up something on aircraft technology. I’d only read a few pages, but one passage had always stuck in my mind — a description of the computer targeting system in certain fighter planes. The target appeared on a screen, with four white lines round it. The white lines formed a square known as ‘the kill box’. Whatever lay inside the square could be destroyed by the aircraft’s missiles. That I was thinking of it now was no coincidence. It didn’t necessarily have to do with being annihilated. It was simply the idea that you could be targeted by forces that were beyond your control. Nina had disappeared and I was thought to be responsible.

I was up in the hills. Up in the hills and heading east. I’d opened the window and cold air was rushing through the car. In the rear-view mirror I saw papers rise up off the back seat like a flock of ghostly birds. They whirled about, they jostled one another. A big brown envelope dipped past my shoulder and flew out into the night. I watched it shrink in the darkness behind the car; I hoped it wasn’t anything important. I took a deep breath and breathed out slowly. The air was so fresh. It had an aromatic edge to it. I wasn’t sure if it was fir trees releasing resin or some herb that happened to be growing wild.

Nina had disappeared.

I pulled the car off the road. I shifted into neutral, put the handbrake on, switched off the engine. Behind me I heard the papers settle. Buttoning my coat, I opened the door and got out.

There was the city, far below. A loose collection of lights, milky and blurred, as if seen through frosted glass. Over to my right, the motorway — one long illuminated line, bright as the past that I’d forgotten. My new life was the gloom on either side of it, the darkness between roads. I could sense a headache forming, the amorphous shape of it — a pressure. I emptied two pills on to my hand and swallowed them.