1985 - Stars and bars (19 page)

Pudding turned out to be apple pie, cooked in a roasting tin with inch-thick wholemeal pastry. Alma-May had halved the apples but this was the only concession she had made to fruit preparation. In his portion Henderson found a twig with a few leaves on it. Perhaps Alma-May simply lined her roasting tin with pastry, set it on the ground in the orchard and shook the trees till the fruit fell in…

Bryant seemed quite content and after dinner went back upstairs to rejoin Duane and his music. Henderson caught her alone for a moment and asked her if she were enjoying herself.

‘Sure. It’s OK.’

‘You’re absolutely positive you don’t want to go home?’

‘Yes. I’ll stay.’

‘Did you have a good day in Atlanta?’

‘It was all right.’

Tell me, what’s Duane like?’

‘He’s OK.’

He sat and watched television with Gage and Beckman until about eleven o’clock and then went to bed. He undressed and looked at his naked body in the mirror. His belly was as hard and distended as a gourd. He looked at his hairless shanks and collapsing buttocks and was not well pleased with what he saw. He made a half-hearted resolve to exercise. Perhaps he should take up jogging? But then he remembered he
did
exercise: he zenced. He did a few zencing drills, up on his toes and lunging until his calves ached. Then he climbed into bed.

He thought for a while about his coming reunion with Irene. It was, he thought, a little uncharacteristic of her to relent so quickly. Perhaps she had missed him? Perhaps, he speculated, she had fallen in love with him? This, however, proved beyond the powers of his imagination.

He settled down on his rack waiting for the night to pass. From time to time there were ominous rumblings and pingings from his hard bloated stomach. What he needed was some stodge: some cholesterol, carcinogens and red meat. Alma-May’s regime was too harsh: more suited to an animal, some robust herbivore, a camel or a giraffe; some beast with a mouth full of flat grinding molars, and whose idea of a delicacy was to strip the bark from a sapling. His model of late twentieth-century man just wasn’t designed for such rigours. If he didn’t have some monosodium glutamate within the next twenty-four hours he’d start getting the shakes.

He heard Duane’s music stop and the night noises were left to themselves. He worried vaguely for a while about the population explosion, the disappearing rain forests and the destruction of the ionosphere by aerosol sprays and at some point in the small hours consciousness left him.

T
he next morning Henderson completed his rough catalogue and showed it to Gage.

‘All that remains to be settled now, Mr Gage, are the prices and the date of the auction.’ He handed over his estimate of the paintings’ value.

‘You’ll see that the reserve column totals $z,330,000,’ he said. ‘That’s the minimum for which we will allow them to be sold. Needless to say that price is kept strictly confidential. I’ve based it on current sale-room performance, but, for example, I think Vuillard is grossly undervalued at the moment, but there you are. Anyway, absolutely no problem about meeting the reserve, I’m sure. Lots of them will go much higher as well. The Braque, the Sisleys…’

‘Two million three,’ Gage pondered. ‘Where do you guys make your money?’

‘We charge the buyers a ten per cent commission on top of the sale price. We normally charge the seller a rate too, but in this case we are happy to waive it.’

‘Nice business. What about the landscapes?’

‘I don’t think we’re likely to clear more than another, oh, $100,000 if we’re lucky.’

‘I see.’

‘Well, it’s been a pleasure—’

‘You mean you’re finished?’

‘Well, me personally. There’s the insurance, packing, transportation, catalogues, exhibition and advertising to be taken care of, but that will be in the hands of our very capable staff. If you’re happy with these reserve figures, then there’s nothing more for you to worry about.’

‘Oh.’ Gage seemed disgruntled.

‘Is there anything wrong?’

‘I guess I didn’t figure you’d be through so fast.’

‘I am just the valuer and assessor,’ Henderson explained. ‘My job is really quite straightforward. And I have,’ he added gently, ‘been here since Sunday—five days. I’m usually no longer than an afternoon.’

Gage appeared to be deep in perplexed thought. ‘I see. I suppose you’ll be going soon.’

‘I thought tomorrow.’

‘Mmm.’

Henderson left him and went to check on his car. He wondered what was bothering the old man. He had put up with the bizarre household purely because of the importance and magnitude of the sale. Us valuers, he told himself a little smugly, don’t like to linger. Pruitt Halfacre rarely took more than an hour.

He walked down the front steps. It was another clear hot day. His car had already acquired its coating of dust and its metal sides were hot to the touch. He walked round it and saw with irritation that the wheel still had not been replaced. Bloody Duane, he thought. There was nothing for it. He took off his jacket and rolled up his shirt sleeves. He had last changed the wheel on a car some time in the 19605 on a motoring tour of the Loire valley, but all he could remember of the exercise was some hideous complication with the jack and subsequent acrimonious row with his then girlfriend.

He walked round to the back to open the boot and notked that the small flap over the petrol cap was ajar. He looked closer. The cap was loose. He strongly doubted whether any petrol remained in the tank. He opened the boot. The spare tyre had gone.

He made a couple of circuits of the car muttering and nodding to himself with an expression of sardonic wisdom on his face, like a man whose worst suspicions about human kind have just been unequivocally confirmed.

‘Everything OK?’ It was Shanda standing at the doorway of her mobile home fanning herself with a magazine. She came carefully down the steps and teetered over in her high heels, like a soft-soled bather on a cruel shingle beach. Henderson pointed to the petrol tank.

‘No pet…No gas,’ he said.

‘I know. Duane syphoned it out this morning. He said to tell you.’

‘Why? Good God. What’s he playing at?’

‘He din’t have no gas in his car.’

Henderson put his hands on his hips and looked round at the scenery.

‘He took your spare, too. He said you’d got all different types of French tyres on your car. He’s trying to get them matched.’

Henderson rubbed his eyes. ‘I’m leaving tomorrow,’ he said.

‘Look, your jacket’s fallen on the ground.’ Shanda bent down to pick it up, but, for some reason—her high heels and the disequilibrium of Freeborn Gage jnr—she fell over, giving a little squeal of alarm. Henderson helped her up. Shanda was giggling, and he wondered suddenly if she were a little drunk. Her pregnant belly bulged against his hip bone. It was soft and springy, in strong contrast to his own cast-iron gut. She put an arm on one of his shoulders while, wobbling on one leg, she attempted to adjust the strap of a high heel. Henderson stood there patiently, a reliable leaning post. He heard a car and looked round. Duane, he earnestly hoped, with two wheels and some fuel. But no: it was Freeborn.

The car thumped to a halt and Freeborn bounded out, not bothering to shut the door behind him. Shanda gave a low groan—she was still struggling with her shoe.

‘Hi, darlin’,’ she called. ‘Get your friends?’

Henderson saw two suited, smart-looking men get out of the car behind her advancing husband. Shanda became bipedal. Freeborn’s ten spread fingers pronged fiercely into Henderson’s soft chest, bruising, and propelling him with disturbing ease back against his car.

‘
Ouchl
Steady on!’

Freeborn now had a forefinger practically up Henderson’s left nostril. His large face loomed three inches away. Henderson had a close-up view of the fjord-like contours of his carved and clipped facial hair. What painstaking efforts it must require, the thought entered his mind, unbidden, to shave around those gulfs and promontories, those peninsulae and bays each morning-surely defeating the ostensible purpose of growing a beard in the first place, namely to rid one of the necessity of that tedious chore.

‘I fuckin’ warned you, scumbag!’ Freeborn’s breath had a curious antiseptic tang. Perhaps the result of a judicious swilling of the mouthwash he peddled along with his medical wadding.

‘Come
on
, ’ Henderson said, hurt. ‘She fell over. I helped her up.’

‘You don’t touch her, heah?’

‘What was I meant to do? She couldn’t get up, she was like a turtle on its back or something. Helpless.’

‘You calling Shanda a turtle? Bastard!’

Freeborn hit him in the stomach, and something terrible happened to his jammed intestines. He fell to his knees. Everything went red and fizzing for an instant. He heard Shanda scream. His vision cleared and he blinked away his tears. It hadn’t really hurt. How remarkable! He stood up unsteadily. He backed off. Pingings and rumblings were coming from his gut, like a dam about to break. He farted uncontrollably. Freeborn advanced on him rubbing his sore fist. There was only one thing for it now, Henderson calculated. Total panic. He turned and ran.

Too late he realized he should have run down the road to Luxora Beach. He sprinted up to the trees at the park’s edge and looked back. Ungainly Freeborn lumbered after him yelling imprecations. More gainly Henderson dodged his swinging punches easily and ran back towards the house.

‘Stop him, stop him!’ Shanda beseeched. Freeborn’s two guests looked on in open-mouthed astonishment.

‘Who?’ Henderson shouted.

‘You, you!’

Did she want
him
to stop, or stop Freeborn?

Freeborn pounded up, his face florid, his breath coming in hoarse, phlegm-rattling gasps. Henderson looked quickly about him, then snatched a bamboo cane prop from a flower bed. The large sunflower it supported keeled gently over as if in slow motion.

Henderson held the cane in front of him. Left elbow on hip. Controlled relaxation: fleche attack, cuts to the head. Freeborn stopped abruptly, a look of puzzlement on his face. Shanda’s whimpering died away as they all contemplated Henderson on guard.

Henderson flourished his cane, wiggling the tip at Freeborn’s face. Nobody moved. Then Henderson suddenly felt tired and foolish. He sensed the beginnings of a blush through his sweat.

Freeborn turned away.

‘Get me a beer, honey,’ he said and spat two or three times on the ground. He turned to his guests. ‘Gentlemen, let’s go inside.’ With uneasy smiles the two men skirted Henderson and went into the trailer. Freeborn followed, and Henderson was left alone.

He stuck the cane back in the border and attempted to right the fallen sunflower. As he picked it up, the great nodding head, the size of his own face, came away in his hand.

That afternoon, after a lunch of pan-fried nut rissoles and turnip slaw, Henderson went in search of Duane. Mobility was his chief concern now: he had to be in Atlanta in twenty-four hours for Irene.

‘He ain’t here,’ said Alma-May. She didn’t know nothing about ‘no tize’.

On the way back into the hall from the kitchen he met Freeborn and his two guests. There were no introductions. Freeborn ignored him as he ushered the two men up the stairs. Henderson assumed they were going to see Gage. He wondered what for.

He went outside and made his way to a ramshackle collection of old sheds some distance away from the main house. Here he found the old black gardener who kept the grounds in order. Henderson asked him if he knew where he might lay his hands on a spare tyre and a gallon of petrol.

‘Luxora.’ The old man said. ‘Dr Tire. They’s a gas station there too. You can get gas there.’

‘Thank you,’ Henderson said, smiling politely.

Returning to the house, he quickened his pace when he heard the dull throb of music emanating from Duane’s bedroom.

He knocked on the door, failed to make out any reply and pushed the door open. The walls were covered with shiny posters of rock stars and sportsmen. There was a lingering foetid smell of unwashed, overused sheets garnished with a hint of ashtrays long unemptied. The noise of the music was immense and palpable. It seemed to stir strands of his hair. Four speakers the size of travelling trunks stood in each corner of the room. Bryant sat alone on the bed, crosslegged, smoking, bobbing her head to the rhythms of the drums.

‘Bryant!’ he shouted.

She looked round, got up and turned the music down.

‘What do you want?’ she said.

‘I’m looking for Duane.’

‘He’s not here.’

‘I can see that. What are you doing here?’

‘He said I could listen to his records any time I want.’

‘Well, he’s got two of my tyres and a tankful of petrol and I’d like them back.’

‘I know. God, he’s only trying to help,’ she said disgustedly.

‘It’s a funny way to render assistance. Why did he have to syphon my petrol?’

‘He’d run out of gas. He had to have gas to take your tyres to try and match them. I said he could.’

‘Very decent of you…Tell him to get it all back together by tomorrow morning. We’re leaving.’