‘Which?’
‘A situation.’
‘Which?’
‘Someone comes over.’
‘Camby? Laidlaw?’
‘This is me, standing with the boyfriend, and someone comes over and is asking who was the guy I was talking to not long ago when the boyfriend was not there.’
‘Which of them?’
‘You get how awkward it is, do you?’ she replied.
‘Because you hadn’t told the boyfriend?’
‘“Who was the guy you were talking to for quite a while previously?” Most likely it’ll be on the CCTV and you’ll see who came over and asked this question. I don’t want to say who it was. I’m not a grass. I just want to stop you coming around my place and so on. Why I’m talking. Only that.’
‘Nobody’s going to say you told us.’
‘Nobody’s going to say I told you, because I haven’t told you and I won’t. So, Vernon hears this question about the other guy.’
‘Vernon’s the boyfriend?’
‘Was. It folded.’
‘I’m sorry.’
She gave a small wave with her right hand, perhaps meaning their break-up didn’t matter much – not to her. She’d be about twenty with a round, mobile, clever face, her hair dark and short and in need of a bit of shaping from Iris. She wore a knee-length denim skirt, cerise blouse and battered looking trainers. Whatever drinking and doping she did, it hadn’t dulled her grey-green eyes. She watched Esther as though she needed watching, in case she tried some ploy, even on away ground picked by Belinda.
‘If it’s on CCTV, you’ll see how Vern’s really shocked and angry because some other guy has been mentioned. He says: “Which guy, Belinda? You never told me about a guy.” And this is so correct. This other guy – not Gervaise Etcetera, but the one who came over and asked the question—’
‘Camby. Or Laidlaw.’
‘He doesn’t give a monkey’s that he’s bringing me trouble. A bit of delicacy is not his game, is it? All he cares about is finding out about this guy I talked to when Vernon was in the toilet. “Who was he?” he says.
‘Of course, I don’t know who he was, not at that time I didn’t, not even his name. So, that’s what I tell them.’
‘“Some guy just comes up and talks to you?” Vernon said. He’s doing his “You looking at my bird?” act. “Where is he now?” Eyes gone narrow, mouth so tight, breathing ferocious. Nice blurring from the snort all gone.’
‘They don’t believe you?’ Esther said.
‘Don’t believe what?’
‘That you didn’t know him,’ she replied.
‘Vern thinks I’ve been fratting with some stranger who tried his luck because I looked solo. That’s going to niggle. He’s been in the toilet, faithfully doing nostrils duty, and I’m among the crowd, making myself available. He’d consider it . . . well, indelicate. And the other guy, the one with the questions—’
‘Laidlaw? Or Camby?’
‘He thinks the guy – that’s the one who turns out to be Gervaise Etcetera – he thinks this guy’s been dredging for stuff about Tribe and some of the people there because he’s on a big dig mission.’
‘Which was true,’ Esther said.
‘So, I say he’s a cruising gay who wants to know can I show him any others in Tribe. I tell Vernon this was why I never mentioned it – because it didn’t seem important, a gay searching for gays. But is he going to believe that – a gay asking a woman about other gay men? Maybe not, but I had to try something. The questions keep coming, like, What did we talk about? And I say I told him I couldn’t help because I didn’t have a clue who was gay, except I knew Vernon wasn’t. And then he says – I mean, not Vernon, but the one who’d come over – he says I seemed to talk to him for a long time. Was it only to say I didn’t know if there were gays about? He asks do I have a name for him, or an address, especially an address. And, of course, I haven’t. But Vern says, “Did he want you to meet him somewhere else some time? That what it was about?” I say, “No,” but does he believe this, either? He keeps on with it, even in bed later, and, afterwards, he’s going through my clothes and bag in case I wrote down a number or something for the one I was talking to while he was in the toilet. In a way, jealousy like that is nice – it shows he cares, but it’s also insulting. So I get rid. He was common as underarms anyway.’
‘Did anyone tail Tasker from Tribe?’
‘Wouldn’t know. I lost him. I didn’t see him leave.’
‘He might have still been in the club when Camby came over to talk to you. Or Laidlaw?’
‘Yes, he might have been there when someone came over. Like I said – crowded, lights down.’
‘So, Camby could have tailed him after speaking to you and Vernon? That’s Camby or Laidlaw.’
‘You’re stuck on those two names, aren’t you?’ Belinda said.
‘They’re wrong?
‘Somebody could have tailed him, if Gervaise Etcetera was still in the club.’
‘Or one of their staffers?’
‘Whose staffers?’
‘Camby’s. Or Laidlaw’s. They’d have had people there, wouldn’t they – pushing stuff? But are you saying those names are wrong?’
‘I’m not saying anything as to names of personnel,’ she said.
‘At least tell me if it’s neither of the two.’
‘Gervaise Etcetera did leave some notes, then, did he? An account of the scene? The CCTV might tell you if he was still in the club.’
‘It’s important for us to know what happened afterwards.’
‘That right?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Someone gets beaten up and murdered and put on show in a kids’ playground – yes, I can see this might be regarded as important.’ She stood. ‘I’ve got an appointment with Iris. I can’t help with afterwards. I’ve told you everything I know.’
‘I ought to have your surname and address. And Vernon’s.’
‘Not on. I know you can find them if you want to, but I’m not giving them. It wasn’t that kind of meeting.’
‘Which kind was it?’
She took the magazine off the shelf and held it up. ‘Hello. Goodbye. This kind,’ she said.
‘The club CCTV missed you entirely,’ Esther said.
Belinda frowned. ‘Couldn’t you have told me earlier?’
‘Of course I could have.’
That evening, Esther went to hear Gerald playing in a concert at the Silurian Hall off Oxford Street in the West End. He really loved her to be in the audience. She knew he regarded it as bringing her to heel. As he’d see it, the prime prat, she was there because of him. Only because of him. And, of course, this couldn’t be more true. He and the bassoon controlled her leisure for anything up to five hours, taking into account the travelling and an interval. In addition, being a wife, she would have to clap the performance sincerely for a good while, which meant he also controlled her hands during this spell of loyal applause, not like when they were belting each other and he might get a sudden, very startling set of knuckles over the heart or in his throat.
One of the most useful things about Esther was, although she could have done without all classical music, she didn’t detest any particular work or composer more than the rest – certainly not the embittered way Gerald detested JS Bach and Copland. For instance, she would sit right through this concert and maintain a look of perfect interest, even appreciation: no bored-as-buggery shifting about on her chair, no get-lost-for-God’s-sake coughing. And Vivaldi – she could spot a bit of almost tune in the piece of his they did. And then Elgar. Taking into account what composers could be like, she considered he kept things reasonably sane and genial in his stuff.
Gerald’s main exposure came in a Paul Hindemith sonata. Esther did not find this intolerable, or even close to intolerable. She shouted ‘More!’ at the end, although he hadn’t pre-asked her to. He wouldn’t, because that would empower her, as though calling the sommelier for another bott
le. ‘More!’ she yelled, and they replayed a bit of the Hindemith. Esther decided she could get used to Hindemith eventually if she stuck at it, which she might not, though.
At the end of the concert, Esther made her way down the hall to speak to Gerald and give him her production-line congratulations. ‘Precise, meticulous, yet by no means unimpassioned, Ger,’ she said.
‘This is a balance I always seek.’
‘And find.’
‘Yet I ask myself, is music about mere balance?’
‘What answer do you get?’
A man and woman approached. Esther recognized Rupert Bale from television. ‘Mr Davidson,’ he said, ‘you have just guided us along such a spiritual journey. Hindemith – an enigma, yet brilliantly decoded by you. Oh, forgive: I’m Rupert Bale. I do some arts TV, you know. And I hear from the producer that you’ll be joining one of our panels soon. Marvellous. This is Dione Pellotte. We’re both nuts about Hindemith.’
‘I’m Esther Davidson,’ Esther said.
‘Are you a Hindemith fan, too?’ Bale asked.
Esther spun her word hoard and let whatever wanted to come out come out in whichever order it wanted to: ‘He’s full of semblancing yet also of sublime interaction and tact,’ she said.
‘Exactly,’ Bale said.
‘What’s it mean?’ Dione said.
‘We come to many concerts,’ Bale said.
‘You’re police, aren’t you?’ Dione asked Esther.
‘This evening is not about me but about Gerald and his wonderfully accomplished colleagues,’ Esther said.
‘I was impressed by the last A Week in Review,’ Gerald said. He sat hunched and resting, before packing his bassoon. Did he look deficient without the instrument actually in his mouth? Other players called au revoirs as they left.
‘You don’t mean the gig with that fucking Sandine tart serenading Rupe’s crotch, do you?’ Dione said. ‘They discussed a novel – The Insignia of Postponement, or some such daft title – the Royle Family and a couple of other things.’
‘This was a programme with pace and focus,’ Gerald replied.
‘Yes, well the only pace I wanted to see was Sandine flung out fast on her high-slung tits,’ Dione said.
She was about twenty-seven, twenty-eight, slim, not too tall, with good skin, and a tidy profile. A near-beauty, no question. She wore her fairish hair brilliantly rough-cut, probably not at Scissors Movement. Although addressing Gerald, she kept an unbroken stare on Esther, as if amazed anyone could actually choose to be a police officer, and therefore should be studied for the explanation. Belinda had done some staring, too. Perhaps Dione’s face was slipping into chubbiness. She’d have to watch herself. Crook barons shouldn’t have chubby daughters. They ought to be elegant and at a good fighting weight. She wore an excellent dark blue woollen suit, possibly her Hindemith gear, and moderate heels. ‘You had some of Dad’s people taken in as suspects for the death of that sneaky journalist, didn’t you?’ she said. ‘My father’s mentioned you. He mentioned a bassoonist husband.’
‘It’s something that does happen to me,’ Esther said.
‘What?’ Dione said.
‘Getting mentioned by people’s fathers – if their fathers are of a certain kind,’ Esther said.
‘Which kind?’ Dione said.
‘The kind that mentions me,’ Esther said.
Bale said: ‘My view is that, though somebody’s skills might lie in one art only – say music – he or she will probably be able to speak intelligently and in no-nonsense terms about other arts, too. This is why we look forward to your participation in A Week in Review.’
‘Of course, you had to let them go,’ Dione said. ‘It’s just a regular tic by police. Some crime beats you – you can’t crack it, so let’s blame Happy Gardening Solutions. But not the main man, my dad, because you’re scared of him and his influence. You pick underlings.’
‘Your dad does have influence,’ Esther said. ‘So does cyanide.’
Gerald said: ‘I feel it would be a narrowing of . . . of, yes, a narrowing of the very soul for someone who excels in one art, such as music, to believe only this art really counts. It is a kind of blasphemy against the general, precious creative impulse.’
‘Are you a tit man?’ Dione asked Gerald. ‘Is that why you’ve agreed to take part? She’s not in every show, you know.’
‘Does that disappoint Rupert?’ Esther replied.
‘Width of outlook – so crucial in a panellist,’ Bale said.
‘Did you ever run across him?’ Esther said.
‘Who?’ Dione said.
‘The sneaky journalist,’ Esther said.
‘I feel that with Hindemith we certainly hear the call of a certain period – say Europe in the thirties,’ Bale said, ‘and yet this is also music that bridges so many time zones, so many areas of the world, even the cosmos. Listening to your playing, Gerald – if I may – I could feel both these qualities of the composer. It has been a privilege.’
‘So, where do you go next?’ Dione asked Esther. ‘Who will you terrorize tomorrow?’
‘Journalists can stir – can make tense situations worse,’ Esther replied.
‘Which tense situation?’ Dione said.
Ten
Naturally, Abel Vagrain, author of The Insignia of Postponement and other works, realized he could be pulled into something a little dangerous, a little terrifying. Although his new book had been given such an extraordinary boost on television, with all kinds of sweet results, he came to see after a while that it might also bring bad trouble.
But one of the early sweet results was this girl, Karen Tyne. Lithe, conversational, cheerful, straddling him now with a commitedness that surely went beyond mere fandom and hero worship. They had met at a publicity and signing session devoted to him and The Insignia of Postponement earlier this evening in a massive Hampstead book shop, Voluminous. Another good by-product of the brilliant, famous/notorious TV coverage was bookshops like Voluminous wanted to cash in, and had organized sales events for Vagrain and Insignia. It didn’t happen last time: one of his previous books had been featured on A Week in Review, but vividly slaughtered then by a panellist called Rex Ince. No bookshops wooed him after that. Things were so magnificently different now.
Karen had bought a copy for him to autograph, and engineered happy chats with Vagrain in his role as a hot, sought-after author. ‘I adored the television item,’ she’d said. ‘As a matter of fact, I sort of know Rupert Bale, chairman that night.’
‘Really? How? Wasn’t he wonderful?’ Vagrain said.
‘Good old Rupert.’ The shared interest in Bale had given her and Vagrain a quick, useful route into a kind of familiarity, then closeness. And, eventually, they’d drifted back to her place.
He’d never previously had a one-night stand. He’d written about one-night stands, and notably, as a matter of fact, in The Insignia of Postponement, although he realized one-night stands might, on the face of it, suggest the total, blood-rush opposite of postponement. He felt especially glad that in the book he had always given his treatment of one-night stands a lot of tenderness, shared joy, sincerity – a fleeting sincerity, true, but perhaps more touching and attractive as a result.
Early on in Voluminous he had asked her what she meant by ‘sort of’ knowing Rupert Bale. Explanation: a friend of hers had a relationship going with him – a ‘significant’ relationship. This friend was not the woman, Priscilla Sandine, who’d appeared with Bale on the show the other night and helped him make the programme fizz. No, but a chum of Karen called Dione Pellotte. Dione, she said, had the significant love affair under way with Rupert Bale, significant and what she termed ‘touched by grievous peril’. Some of the vocabulary sounded quaint to Vagrain, yet exciting – not just peril but grievous peril.
In Voluminous, after he’d done a reading from one chapter, some short speechifying and many signings, one of the younger women from the audience had re-approached him, holding a copy of Insignia. Ka
ren. She was lovely, and, of course, he’d noticed her when she queued earlier for his signature. She said how much she’d enjoyed the TV discussion of his book and mentioned the link with Bale. ‘So I usually look in at the show. Also, a one-time history tutor of mine appears sometimes as a panellist. Ince.’
‘Rex Ince? I’ve come across him.’
‘Done you damage?’
‘Done you damage?’
‘An unfadingly odious jerk. I watch, hoping he’ll die on-screen or get hit by double incontinence. But, anyway, that night he wasn’t there to taint things. I realized at once that I must have Insignia. Absolutely must! I’ve been reading Anthony Powell, but I’ll put that aside.’
Later, when he lay unstraddled by Karen, revelation came suddenly to him. With an actual one-night stand, as against an imagined episode for a book, you could not always know while it was taking place that, in fact, it would be a one-night stand. A one-night stand earned its breezy, clear label not simply because two people made love more or less immediately they met. The words also clearly meant that the two people never made love again, and possibly never even saw each other again. Vagrain could not be certain he and Karen would never meet again. He might not want such a split.
At the signings, some other people from the bookshop audience had crowded around for a personal word with Vagrain, and Karen declared she must not hog him. Hog me, hog me! Get your gorgeous questing snout wherever in my confines you like! Snort and grunt over me! Gulp me, chew me, nibble me, swallow me! But he did not yell or even say this. ‘I’m interested in your reactions to the TV treatment of the book,’ he told her. ‘Perhaps a word or two more in a minute, if you wouldn’t mind hanging on? I’ll just say hello to these kind folk.’ As tactfully as he could he closed down his conversation with the other customers and joined Karen near the three-for-two counter. She looked up from the book, smiling.