Except for the bite scar, it was a photograph Penelope loathed, the only one of him she’d kept when disposing of his stuff after the funeral; and even so it stayed out of sight most of the time. She knew she could not bear to have anything around that recalled Eric at his best, and might force her to realize in full again what had gone from her life. For instance, she had systematically burned all the pictures which caught Butler-Minton in situations where his normal, cheerful arrogance and loud, bullying and bullshitting dynamism screamed out at her. This meant nearly all. Likewise, she destroyed every photo where he figured wearing one of those seven or eight gloriously lopsided, loony-stitch, Dominican Republic lounge suits. He’d brought them back solely to cause affront, or, at the very least, bowel-troubling edginess to H. de T. Timberlake and other people from the Museums Board in London. The suits themselves finished in the incinerator, having been turned down huffily by both Oxfam and the Salvation Army. So, this starchy Ibadan photograph and the Egyptian boatman’s paddle in the sauna were about the only mementoes she allowed herself. Although now and then she regretted having got rid of so much, and could feel quaintly starved of Flounce, she would tell herself, OK, she ought to feel starved: he was dead. Yes, she did tell herself that, but didn’t always listen.
‘I had my doubts about Lepage, as you know, Eric, but second thoughts: he might be able to handle matters after all. Perhaps he’s tougher than he seems. At the Founder’s he gave a speech fizzing with fuck-all, but brilliantly the right kind of fuck-all – not the sort of self-advancing, flesh-creep stuff you might have given, getting everyone’s goat and prosing about the agonies of your retread soul. The two Japanese seem to like him. That’s important. And, of course, he doesn’t carry any of that potentially awkward stuff from the Wall period – the haversack straps and Mrs Cray.’
She heard a car draw up sharply on the drive outside and then stand with its engine turning over. Headlight beams had swung swiftly across the hall ceiling as it arrived. ‘Oh, shit, Eric,’ she said, ‘this will be poor Falldew again, looking for you and the past. Well, I must help, up to a point. Things are at crisis level with Nev at present. One must be supremely caring.’ She stood, switched off the cupboard light and closed its doors. The motor outside had been cut. A car door was slammed, and quick footsteps came towards the house. The bell rang. She opened up. It was D.Q. Youde, agitated and purposeful in a cloak. ‘Quentin,’ she said. ‘You know I don’t like you coming to the house to see me.’
‘You’re a single woman now. It’s not as when he was alive.’
‘I still find it strange.’
‘I think of you as a friend, and, naturally as more than friend,’ he replied.
‘Yes, yes, of course.’ She closed the door and took him into the living room.
‘Penny,’ he said, in a terse, fait accompli tone, ‘we must go away at once.’
‘Quent, dear, what is it?’
‘For good,’ he said.
‘What for good?’
‘Go away for good.’
‘Go away? What about the Hulliborn and Art?’
‘Because of the Hulliborn and Art.’
‘I’m baffled.’
‘I can’t take any more. Please, Penny.’
‘Relax, Quent. You look terrible, love.’ She knew this would get him concerned and perhaps more controlled. She watched him glance in the mirror and then ferociously try to reassemble his features into the Degas face, not taking his eyes off the process for more than a minute.
‘Forgive,’ he said. ‘But you were the only one I could think of.’
‘We’ll sort something out.’
‘You’re looking at a laughing-stock.’
‘Who is laughing?’
‘Many. Some unrestrainedly, viciously.’
‘Why?’
‘The El Grecos. The fucking “El Grecos”. I’ve brought contumely on the Hulliborn at a time of its greatest need. Only flight is left.’
‘Let’s sit down, shall we? I’ll bring drinks.’
He took her arm. ‘Yes, but first tell me you’ll do it. Please, tell me, Penny.’
She hated being gripped in that desperate way, as if a banister in an eventide home, but generously killed off the urge to throw him against the living room wall. Like Falldew, he seemed in true want, and she must let him talk his troubles.
‘I long to go somewhere abroad, a place where you lived with him. Say, Africa. The Middle East. Anywhere they knew Flounce Butler-Minton and you.’
‘To where Eric and I lived? Diourbel? Jimma? Some rich memories there. But why? And then there’s the cat.’
‘Places where Flounce did his best archaeological work. I’m finished here, you see. The Hulliborn fights for its well-being, even for its life, and I make it a worldwide joke. But if people at one of those sites of his former triumph could see – actually see in the flesh – that I’d displaced the adored Butler-Minton, and had been chosen by you, a wonderful consort, to take over … oh, don’t you glimpse what I mean, Penny? I might be finished here, but there I would be 1990s man. We would walk those foreign streets as the day cooled, contented, fulfilled, and people watching us would observe our happiness and share in it. They would know nothing of the “El Greco” farce.’ Swivelling his head slowly he stared into all corners of the room. ‘You talk to him in this house, don’t you? I feel it, and I entirely comprehend.’
‘There is regular communion,’ she replied.
‘I don’t object.’
‘Good, D.Q.’
He did release her now, and she guided him gently to a settee. ‘It’s charming of you, Quent – the way you always lust to be someone else. So humble, so literally self-effacing. Why don’t you take your cloak off?’ She undid the big metal clasp at his neck and put the garment on a chair. Without it, he seemed considerably less, like one of those joke parcels that is all wrapping paper. ‘First you wanted to be Degas. Now Eric. Did you see Zelig? Despite Eric, I’m into Woody Allen at present. It’s about a character who changes to match his surroundings: if he goes into a Greek restaurant he turns Greek, and at a Nazi rally he becomes a Hitler crony, although Jewish. You have similar chameleon qualities. It’s fascinating.’
‘Penny, of course I want to be somebody else. Why? Because as I am I am nobody,’ he bellowed. ‘I don’t want to be somebody else, I want to be somebody!’
‘What makes you so sure the “El Grecos” are wrong? You were confident about them when talking to the Press: not the voice of a nobody. And then the fight with Vince Simberdy because of the kiss and arse-crack clutch – again not the behaviour of a nobody, but the behaviour of someone brave and sensitive and gallant.’
‘It was necessary,’ Youde said. ‘But, as to the “El Grecos” – a mounting certainty, a feeling about them. Of course, I hide it, keep up a bonny, fraudulent front, like any responsible professional, but the doubt grows all the time. Penny, I trust my feelings. Now, Lepage tells me the insurers are niggling, too. I’ve thought of suicide – inevitably. But then, timeless exile seemed more appropriate, with you.’
‘Darling, you could still be right about those works. Forget the “experts”. Eric always said they—’
‘You see what I mean, Penny? He pervades. He is your eternal point of reference. I want that role! Oh, to walk alongside you, acknowledged by the populace, just as he used to walk alongside you! Yes, in the dusty, faraway streets of Ethiopia. That sounds perfect. You would look at me, as you used to look at him, not adoration, necessarily, but simple, calm wonderment. This would end all my troubles.’
‘But Quentin, you’re Art, not Archaeology.’
‘He’s still a part of this house, isn’t he?’ Youde replied. ‘In the structure. In the ambience. In the very decor. Damn. Damn. Damn. That’s why I want to take you away. But, so complex, so baffling – I still would like to keep contact with him, and I could bear your keeping contact with him, also. I have to bear it, because I know that will not change. Look, I don’t really mind that yo
u put out for Jimmy Pirie now and then. I know it means nothing, is just a kind of charity to an unfortunate. It’s Flounce who is really between us, isn’t it? And between us in a positive as well as an obstructive way. Why I said “complex”. His memory and reputation swell, even without confirmation of that Mrs Cray business and the air-sock, while my status plunges into the abyss.’
Penelope feared he might begin to howl. There were no close neighbours, but she would still prefer he didn’t. Sounds from an abyss were always going to be unsettling, probably with echo upon echo. He might be right to see the ‘Mrs Cray business’ as a plus for Eric. Not everyone thought like that. Youde sat far back on the settee, his neck, legs and whole body very stiff, as though dead a decent while. Ethiopia? Jimma? It had been really fine there. By then, all the children were away at school, and she had felt wonderfully liberated. The recollections warmed her very centre and, for a while, she indulged those inspiring memories and found herself beginning to consider seriously Quentin’s proposition. My God, perhaps it was not so crazy after all. She’d had some great and hilarious times there with Eric, and the people were a delight. Could something of that era be recovered? She yearned to think so. And wouldn’t it be a supreme relief to get away from everything here, including that fucking dictatorial cat, Enteritis, and the research girl working on Eric’s biography, with her questions and – worse – bits of knowledge; plus the worrying troubles of Nev Falldew and the overall dangers to the Hulliborn? True, D.Q. Youde could be – and almost definitely would be – a screaming aesthetic agony for a while wherever they went: Jimma, Diourbel or Southend. She would be able to work a few changes on him, though, once they reached fresh ground. And D.Q. had sweet things about him, above and beyond the impressive looks. ‘Tell me more, Quent,’ she said. ‘I begin to like the sound of it.’
He stirred a little. ‘You do?’
‘I think we might be able to make a go of this, yes. We’ve only been playing around here, haven’t we? It’s time we matured.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes?’
‘In Jimma there’d probably still be people I know. They could fix us up with somewhere reasonably cheap. I’d miss the gym, but there are other ways of keeping fit.’
He sat forward and said gratefully: ‘You take things damn calmly.’
‘We’ll have a drink and think a bit more. Then, if things still look good, I can pack in half an hour. Less. Don’t need a hell of a lot for Jimma. Passport’s OK, and jabs. Currency later. But what about Laura?’
‘I’ll definitely ring her and explain – from Heathrow or Addis Ababa.’
She went into the kitchen to fetch the whiskey, feeling almost totally rejuvenated. This was the kind of thrilling project, bursting out of nowhere, that had always been on the cards with Eric, especially in the long-ago past, before the damn Director job took charge. Penelope would have liked to chat over this startling idea with him now in the cupboard, but felt that Quent might see and become upset, given his present mixed-up mood. In any case, she felt sure Eric would approve. He had loved Jimma, too – had been made a real towering fuss of there, as D.Q. suggested. Of course they would remember him and her. ‘I have this flair for making those who scarcely know me in real terms love me,’ Eric had said.
‘It’s a prerequisite,’ she’d replied. That was untrue, but you could not let the bugger get away with too much delight in himself.
Musing happily as she poured the whiskeys, Lady Butler-Minton thought suddenly that she saw through the kitchen window a man crossing the lawn towards the gym. He moved very swiftly among the bushes and trees and, in the darkness, she could not be certain whether it had actually been someone; perhaps nothing but shifting shadows as the foliage flapped in the wind, making deceptive patterns from the scraps of moonlight. She was about to decide it had been imagination, but then told herself that this was slackness, evasiveness. The figure had seemed to be making for the gym. Could it really be Falldew this time? Penny felt her anxieties about pitiful, ruined Nev rush back. Deserting him for Ethiopia might be difficult – cruel. Yet she could not bind her life to his, surely. She took Quentin his whiskey and told him she would have to make certain everything in the grounds was secured, in case they set out tonight. He seemed dazed.
She ran down the garden and, pulling open the gym door, found Falldew in his usual ragtag-and-bobtail garb, standing near the sauna, though it was not switched on this evening. ‘Why, Neville,’ she cried, ‘how grand to see you!’
‘I had to come with the news. Ursula and I are to be married.’
She clapped her hands. ‘That’s wonderful.’
‘And I—’
‘You came up here to announce it. How nice!’
‘Yes, to announce it.’ He stared into the cold, dead sauna, as if searching.
‘I felt I couldn’t go ahead without consulting.’
‘I’m touched,’ she said. But, of course, she realized now that it wasn’t herself he wanted to consult, it was Eric: part of that lasting, unhinging esteem for one who had tried against the governmental odds to keep him in post. ‘It’s lovely news,’ she said and leaned forward to kiss Nev on the cheek.
He smiled, but a little tragically. ‘Ursula will be so pleased to have your blessing.’ He leaned into the sauna and stretched a hand out towards the Egyptian boatman’s paddle, then quickly drew back, as if afraid of being presumptuous. In a few moments he went through the same procedure again. ‘No,’ he whispered, ‘not for Neville Falldew.’
Penny reached over, lifted the paddle and made him take it. For a few important seconds he gazed blissfully at the rough slice of wood. Then he made a few, slow strokes in the air with it, at about his knee level, very softly chanting another pigeon-Arabic, old rope, non-song. In a while, he put the oar reverently back. ‘Thank you,’ he stated, into the sauna, and to the leader who had striven to protect him and his job. Correcting, he turned to Penny: ‘Thank you.’
‘Married when?’ she asked.
‘Soon. We hope you can come.’
‘I might be going away.’
‘Oh, Ursula will be disappointed.’
‘I need a change, Nev.’
‘I saw Quent Youde’s car outside the house, so, naturally, I didn’t want to interrupt. Why I came direct to the gym.’
‘Yes.’
‘It was a pity you stopped me saying my piece at the Founder’s, Penny.’
‘Showing off, as a weightlifter, I just wanted to see if I could carry you. Nothing more.’
They went out of the gym, and she locked the door.
Falldew watched with big horror on his face. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘it’s usually left open.’
‘In case I go away,’ she said.
‘At once?’
‘But I’ll certainly keep in touch, Nev.’
When she returned to the house, D.Q. and his cloak and the car had gone. His whiskey did not seem to have been touched. For a while, Penny sat waiting, savouring her own drink and then knocking off his. She went back into the hall, opened the stair cupboard, switched on the light and resumed her talk to Butler-Minton. ‘Yes, the matter of Lepage. Let’s suppose he doesn’t go down with terminal shaggers’ blight. In that case, I think he’ll win this one for the Hulliborn. People take to him. Not people like you, perhaps, but people really like you are dead. Of course, he’s got troubles. I had Quent Youde here not long ago romanticizing about an elopement to Jimma. He’ll be safely back home now, but his wish to run is symptom of turmoil in the Hulliborn and—’
The phone rang. ‘Oh, perhaps D.Q. did mean it after all, Lip. Has he been home for his Ethiopian phrase book? He’s ringing to tell me to pack?’ She went to answer, leaving the cupboard open. It was Vincent Simberdy.
‘Penny,’ he said, ‘I’m in something of a stew.’ He tried to keep his tone clipped, but she heard poorly suppressed panic. ‘That bloody Youde.’
‘What?’
‘You’re close to him. Has he seemed triumphal lately? It’s why I’
m calling.’
‘Haven’t noticed anything like that, Vince.’
‘A smugness?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘He could turn out right.’
‘Right about what?’
‘In a major way.’
‘Do you mean right about the “El Grecos”?’ she asked.
‘Not “El Grecos”. El Grecos. That’s my info now. He’ll be vindicated and emerge as a star of the Hulliborn. I’m speaking absolutely frankly, perhaps foolishly revealing my dreads. I can’t bear it, Penny. He’ll be lauded. He will be the new Flounce. It’s why I asked you about possible smugness in him. I need to prepare, while I’m still free.’
‘Free? Free how?’
He was silent for half a minute. ‘Not in jail.’
‘Vince, what is this about, for God’s sake?’
‘You read the Press, do you, Penny? Follow the news?’
‘Which?’
‘The whole thing.’
‘Which?’ she said.
‘The one touching us all.’
‘That opens quite a number of possibilities, Vince.’
‘The Fatman. I am he, Penny.’
For a moment she did not understand. Vincent was certainly a fatman. The weight had hampered him badly in that encounter with Quent. But then she said: ‘You took the paintings – the Monet and the “El Grecos”?’
‘El Grecos.’
‘Lord, Vince.’
‘You must promise never to tell.’
‘Of course. Would I betray you? And Olive? Is she in on it?’
‘In some ways more so than myself.’
‘How?’
‘A contact of hers, through the law practice.’
‘One of her crook clients?’
‘It was a mistake. Well, as you can imagine. Obviously, Olive didn’t take them herself, nor I. An accidental involvement. And now things are getting worse.’
‘In which way?’