Like you. Listen, Wedge is missing.
He seems perplexed. Not that Wedge is missing, but that it matters. I’m sorry, how is this connected—
Lionel de Tigrel kidnapped Wedge from my dad’s funeral. Much the same way you kidnapped Uncle Thoby.
Audrey.
What.
Settle down. And listen to me.
I lean back. Okay. I can settle. I can listen to my suspects. Speak.
Lionel de Tigrel was not at your father’s funeral.
I think he really was. Big guy. Belgian. Lion.
Lionel de Tigrel isn’t Belgian.
I think he really is.
He puts down his drink. Leaves the room. Comes back with a magazine. Was he at your father’s funeral.
The magazine has a picture of a man with a long Rumples toff ian beard and a Hawaiian shirt. The caption says: Maniac or Messiah.
I don’t recall seeing that man, no.
That’s Lionel de Tigrel.
I laugh. It is not.
It is. Look. Read.
I don’t like to read.
Audrey.
Okay, so it is Lionel de Tigrel. That’s funny. He looks nothing like the Lionel de Tigrel from my dad’s funeral.
I think it unlikely there are two Lionel de Tigrels, says Toff, and he returns to his sofa.
Fine. Doesn’t matter. He’s still a suspect.
In what exactly. Look, Audrey—
A noise in the hall pulls him up short. A measured click, click, click. Footsteps. On tiptoe.
Well, says Toff. Someone has decided to grace us—
A face appears in the doorway.
I scream. Sort of. I yelp, more like it. Because I do not register at first that this is not a person. The face is so serious. Plus, the face is at human height.
But it is not a human. It is a dog. A Great Dane.
I climb slowly down from the back of the sofa.
The eyes regard me calmly. I thought I heard a visitor. He clicks into the room on stilt legs. Stops beside Toff. The horsiness of him. My God.
This is Hamlet, says Toff. Sit, Hamlet.
Hamlet sits. When he sits, his back legs plié out like a ballerina’s in a way that is a bit, okay very, indecent.
I know what you’re thinking, says Toff.
I don’t think you do.
You’re thinking how many Great Danes have been called Hamlet.
That’s really not what I’m thinking.
As we talk, Hamlet’s face moves right to left, listening. His face is so narrow and serious. I want to laugh. He is all grey. His ears are perfect folded triangles.
Come here, Hamlet, I whisper.
Hamlet looks at Toff.
Toff nods.
Hamlet walks with great dignity across the floor.
I feel very small on my sofa.
He sniffs my eyes. He blesses my forehead. His upper lip droops wetly.
I put my arms around him.
Later, in the cab to the Atomotel, I realize what a bloody distraction that dog was. What a master stroke on Toff’s part. Because for the rest of my time in the house, I had eyes only for Hamlet. I tried to concentrate. I tried to extract information from Toff about his connection to Lionel de Tigrel, which he continued to deny. About Grandmother’s health, which he admitted was not as bad as he’d thought (a minor stroke, a broken wrist). About Uncle Thoby, whose whereabouts he insisted were unknown to him.
Meanwhile, behind him in the dining room, Hamlet was slowly dismantling the cheese skyline.
A whole Camembert down the gullet.
A whole ham. Silently, stealthily.
And every so often he, Hamlet, would glance over as if to implore me, please, mum’s the word.
Toff, facing me, was oblivious.
You can bet Sherlock Holmes would not have allowed himself to become so besotted with a dog that he compromised his investigation. I did manage to get one valuable piece of information: directions to Grandmother’s.
Can I recommend you call her first.
I don’t like calling her.
Call her, he said. And see her in the morning not the afternoon.
Why.
Because she’s lucid in the morning.
Then he said I was mad to stay at an Atomotel miles outside the city. The cab fare would cost more than the room.
I am a loyal Atomotel patron, I said. And thanks for offering.
Offering, he said.
By the glow of the interior light, in a cab paid for by Toff, I skim the article on Lionel de Tigrel. I begin to feel carsick. My investigation is unravelling. The article says Lionel de Tigrel is ten years away from curing aging. Spelled ageing in England. Ten years! My dad already had the cure. Why wasn’t my dad featured in this magazine—what’s it called—Hourglass. Why hadn’t my dad been interviewed on 60 Minutes, as apparently Lionel de Tigrel had been earlier this month.
And how could I have missed seeing Lionel de Tigrel’s face, which is apparently everywhere. Insufficient research. The story of my life. Nevermind. So Lionel de Tigrel did not kidnap Wedge. Directly. But since he is so famous, he might have hired an accomplice. The Belgian. He might have hired the Belgian to kidnap Wedge. Because Wedge is so old and yet so young. And because Walter Flowers is the real McCoy and Lionel de Tigrel is a fraud who has always been fiercely jealous of my dad’s success.
I nod to myself and look out the window to quell my carsickness.
And wasn’t it weird how Toff’s face went all ashen when I said I was going to Cambridge anyway, to interrogate the lion himself.
Atomotel is a chain. Cliff and I stayed in one in the Alps. Atomotels are reasonably priced because the rooms are so tiny. Some have bunk beds. Everything is clean and white. I booked my room using my dad’s credit card. No questions asked. Welcome, nucleus, said the receptionist when I checked in. Because that is Atomotel’s motto: The customer is the nucleus! Pretty catchy.
A computer voice in the elevator said the floor numbers on the way up, I guess in case you are blind or blindfolded. I got off on the eleventh floor. Room 1106.
My atom doesn’t have a bunk bed. Too bad. It has a small electron-shaped bed with a white duvet. The pillow is puffed up into a pyramid. Interesting.
I call home. Two messages. One from Linda. She says Cliff turned up and took Winnifred. Am I okay with that. She hopes so. Because they’re gone. They went back to the old apartment, apparently.
Hang on. What. Replay the message.
Well. Isn’t that why you left her. So that she would be there if Cliff came back. So that someone would be there. You invited him to come get her, didn’t you. Yes, but that was when I thought I’d be going back.
And you won’t be.
No.
This is news. I won’t be going back to Portland.
The second message is from Judd. A recall notice. Thought you might like to know that someone is recalling you fondly. Also that someone is tracking your flight online. Hey, you’re over Ireland.
I turn off the light and climb into bed. Punch the pyramid. Put my head down. So Cliff is back. Safe in the old apartment. With Winnie. And I won’t be going back.
I am bruised and exhausted. My eye throbs. This is not unlike how I felt the last time I stayed in an Atomotel, after a day of “skiing” in the Alps. How many times had I fallen.
The bunk bed in our room was a novelty. I learned to be sexy in that bed. You could brace yourself against the ceiling in all sorts of interesting ways.
We went to dinner and what I remember is Cliff’s vaporous drink, how the vapour curled over the lip of the glass as he told me tall tales about Oregon. Its Alice-in-Wonderland forests and high deserts and low mountains and tepid rain. And then later, in the bunk bed, he said, Would you say no to coming back to America with me.
I would not say no, no.
But I would say no now.
I start to shiver. My atom is cold. And then I remember that in Europe when you turn off the lights, the heat
sometimes turns off too. So you can be warm in the light or cold in the dark. Sleep well, nucleus. I get up and put on my jeans. My legs are so, so fed up with me. I pull the parachute from my bag and spread it over the duvet. Thank you, Judd.
He tracked my plane across the ocean.
You can’t just “come for the tortoise.”
Chuck and Cliff face off. This is flattering. Who’d have thought Chuck had it in him. Well, he’s a pugilist, so of course he has it in him. But I mean, over me. A mere tortoise. Correction: Shakespeare’s tortoise.
I turn slowly around.
Chuck has put his naked torso between me and Cliff. She’s not yours to take, he says.
Cliff gently swings his motorcycle helmet. He doesn’t want a fight. Audrey said it was okay, he says.
You’ve talked to her.
She sent an email.
I’d like to see something with a signature.
Cliff laughs. Come on, Chuck.
I’m serious.
Cliff peers over Chuck’s shoulder. Hey, little buddy, he says, and waves his free hand.
Are you talking to me, Chuck says.
I’m talking to Iris.
Her name’s not Iris.
Since when.
Since you left. I’m calling Linda. He picks up the phone.
Cliff approaches, bends down. Winks at me. He looks a little worse for wear. His jacket has one of those tags on the zipper that means he’s been skiing. It says ANGEL FIRE.
You’re using my tortoise as a paperweight, he says.
Bookmark, says Chuck. Last time I checked, that didn’t qualify as cruelty to tortoises.
Cliff lifts me off the page, the page I’m on—and in. The page with the tortoise to the power of sixty. He holds me up in his big flat palm. She looks thirsty, he says.
How perceptive you are, Cliff.
Hey, Chuck says, presumably to Linda. You won’t believe what the cat just dragged in.
Wanna take a ride, Cliff says to me. On a Harley.
Hang on, says Chuck. Stop right there. Talk to Linda.
Reluctantly, Cliff exchanges me for the phone. Chuck carries me back to my castle. Don’t you worry, Winnifred.
Do I look worried.
Unless they make helmets for tortoises, you’re not getting on a Harley. Jesus fucking Christ.
He deposits me in my pool. I put my head underwater. Drink. When I come back up, Cliff is saying, She didn’t say. She just said the apartment was free. She said the tortoise was here and the apartment was free. And her dad—
Silence.
Oh man.
I climb out of the pool. Stick my head out the window. Cliff is slumped on the sofa. He pushes his hair back. No, I didn’t know. Yeah, okay. He looks over. His eyes get big. He points at me.
What, says Chuck.
That is the most adorable—yeah, okay, he says to Linda, and gives the phone back to Chuck.
He circles my castle. So she built it, he marvels.
I look up at him. Of course she did.
Chuck agrees to let me go, but not on the bike. On that score he is putting his foot down. He’ll take me and my castle in his car. He’ll follow Cliff. Okay.
Cliff says okay.
Chuck puts on some clothes. Cliff puts on his helmet. Chuck grabs his smokes. Cliff grabs me and Papier Mâché. We descend four flights of stairs. When we get to Chuck’s car, Cliff says, She likes to sit on the dashboard.
I know what she likes, says Chuck.
Fine, says Cliff.
Fine, says Chuck.
Chuck puts me on the dashboard. Through the windshield I watch Cliff get astride the orange Harley. There’s a bit of blond hair hanging down below the helmet. The helmet is sparkly blue.
Am I really going home. To the inside-out mountain.
I look over my shoulder at Chuck. He’s got a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. He squints as he starts the car.
We turn off Taft and I start counting down the presidents. Cleveland, Harrison, Cleveland, Arthur. When we hit Washington, Oregon City will be over. Taylor, Polk, Tyler, Harrison. I see the bridge. So many presidents, so few names. How are drivers supposed to keep them straight.
Cliff’s hair flutters in the wind. It’s overcast but not raining. Traffic slows down at the second Adams. Then we’re on the bridge. And I see, down below, the Willamette. Far below. Looking very uninviting. And I have a sinking feeling. I look back at Chuck. Is he about to give Shakespeare’s tortoise the old heave-ho. Hasn’t he been waiting to do this for weeks.
He glances at me, then back at the road.
I begin to discreetly traverse the dashboard.
Where do you think you’re going.
And then he rolls down his window! But oh. He is just tossing his cigarette.
What, he says and rolls the window back up.
Traffic moves slowly over the bridge. Chuck’s face looks pinched. I think about how, when he’s naked, you can see where his rib was broken. I think about him looking out the window. And I have a new kind of sinking feeling. And this feeling continues all the way into Portland until we reach the old building. Chuck puts me in Papier Mâché and hands me over to Cliff. Her name’s Winnifred, he says. Not Iris.
Cliff nods. Sorry about the paperweight comment.
No sweat.
And for a moment we all just stand there on the sidewalk. Then Chuck says, Godspeed, Winnifred. And he bows. Not something he normally does. Or is he just hiding his face. I stick my head out the window and watch him as Cliff carries me away.
Cliff climbs the walls. It is the same but not the same because there is no Audrey. The flat feels colder and mouldier. Cliff discovers the heat lamp and sets it up like a second sun over my castle. Be warm, Winnifred, he says, trying out my new name.
He gives me my dinner and sits on the floor to eat his own. His hands are chalky from climbing. Mr. Noodles in one hand. A tiny spoon in the other. Big bottle beside him. He admires my castle and says, She could really build things, couldn’t she.
We are both thinking about how she turned the flat into a mountain. I drop a piece of lettuce. Remember how she arranged all the climbing holds on the floor and said they looked like Utah from the air. Yeah. Remember how she tried to bolt the first holds into plaster and they just fell away in her hands. Yeah. And then she got the idea of putting up plywood. Everywhere. So the whole flat got smaller by an inch in every direction. The walls closed in. But they could be climbed. Yeah. They could be climbed.
Why did you go, Cliff.
He slurps his Mr. Noodles. His third Mr. Noodles.
Here are a few things you won’t remember. The night before you left, you banged your head on the overhang, a not unusual occurrence, frankly, and you bled. Your forehead was bleeding. And she got a tissue and put it on the wound and then you both sat on the futon and she pressed her forehead against your forehead and said, Are you okay. And you looked so pathetic there, both of you, with your foreheads pressed together, a Kleenex between them. And she said, Move and I’ll make the futon. So you moved, and she turned the sofa into a bed, something I have always found fascinating to watch.
I was not in the Panasonic printer box. I was on the coffee table because when you banged your head she was in the process of changing the comics on the floor of my yet-to-be castle. I was on the coffee table, and I could see your reflection in the TV. The dark grey glass of the TV that made the room look weirdly convex and all the climbing holds like so many teeth.
And the second the bed was made, you crawled in and you were out like a light. But not her. Know what she did. She went out and moved the car somewhere where you couldn’t find it. She was gone for maybe half an hour. This wasn’t the first time either. She came back soaking wet. So she must have hidden it good. She came back wet and took off her wet clothes and saw me on the coffee table keeping watch, and said, Oh shit, Iris. I’m sorry.
That’s okay.
And she put me back in the Panasonic printer box with the new comi
cs on the floor and finally the lights went out.
Because you had this tendency to wake up and drive the car. You had this tendency to leave.
And okay, so the next morning you left anyway, but you didn’t have a getaway car this time. So I guess you walked or hitchhiked or called Ridge. I don’t know. You stood in the kitchen and said the mountains were beckoning. You had your harness on. Ropes at the ready. And she did not say, What about me. She said, What about Iris.
Long pause.
And you said, Would you like a tortoise. Which was your way of saying, I’m going for good this time. Because it was what the last tenant had said to both of you before he moved out: Would you like a tortoise.
And she had said then, I would not say no to a tortoise. And now she said it again.
And even though we both knew you were a previous tenant, we waited and waited for you to come back. But you didn’t. You didn’t. And she climbed the walls waiting for you. And I got cold because, oh by the way, this heat lamp tends to set castles on fire, and she had to remove it.
And you know the rest of the story. How she went out looking for you but called it a vacation. How you showed up at the Grand Canyon and then decamped. Left her sitting there in the waiting room of whatever that building was where they examine tortoises to see if they are native to the canyon—you left her there, and you know what she said when we went back to the campground. She said, How can there be no helmet law in Arizona. Don’t Americans care about the brains of their citizens.
She was still thinking of your safety.
Grandmother lives in Knightsbridge. Near Harrods, according to my exploding map, on which Harrods pops up three-dimensionally. In fact, Grandmother’s street lies in the shadow of Harrods.
I thought Harrods sold shortbread in double-decker bus tins. But in the display windows everything is Egyptian. Or lower case egyptianized. Chairs with sphinx armrests. Mannequins with embryo eyes and broken wrists. Pyramid doorstops.
Grandmother has a flat, not a house. So no stairs to climb. On the ground floor there’s an old elevator operated by a man with gold buttons called Hillings. Hillings says he adores Mrs. Flowers and Hilly.
Who.
Hilly, her nurse.
And you are.