1985 - Stars and bars (34 page)

He asked Bryant to make him some more coffee. Shanda sat opposite him smoking a cigarette. He wondered what he was going to do. He leafed through his mail. Circular, bill, bill, airmail.

Airmail. His own handwriting. Postmark Galashiels. Inside, scored sheets of Campbell Drew’s strong uncompromising hand.

Dear Mr Dores,

 

Thank you for your letter. As you know your father was in six column of Wingate’s first expedition across the Chindwin. On the list of March 1943 we had made camp just prior to attacking a Japanese base at Pinbon. Before we were to attack we were notified of an airdrop for new supplies.

 

It had been decided that, due to our being behind enemy lines, it was not safe for airdrops to be made by parachute. The procedure was for the supply plane to fly low over the jungle and the provisions and ammunition were simply thrown out of the hatch. Of course many stores went missing, but, for security reasons, it was far safer than parachutes.

 

Captain Dores ordered the company to spread out along the area marked for the drop. We had been on the march for weeks and were short of all supplies. This drop was crucial for us.

 

The plane, a Dakota, as I remember, came over fast and low, the crates tumbling out of the hatchway. We gathered up what we could and reported to company H.Q. We assembled there with our collection of supplies. Then it was noticed that Captain Dores was missing. I and three other men went in search of him.

 

I am very sorry to say, sir, that your father was killed by a tin of pineapple chunks. A crate of supplies had broken up in mid-air scattering the tins haphazardly. Your father was hit full on the head. I know he died instantly.

 

I am very sorry to bring you these unfortunate details. I had been with your father since Imphal. He was a very brave man.

 

Yours faithfully,

Campbell Drew

Henderson carefully folded up the letter. A tin of pineapple chunks. Embedded in his skull.

‘Are you OK, Henderson?’

‘Yes, yes.’

‘Bad news?’

‘No, no. Entirely expected.’

‘What’s in your parcel?’

He breathed in deeply. Ach well, he thought, where’s the sense? He tore open the parcel. Demeter and Baubo, frameless, and a letter from Cora.

Dear Henderson,

 

Duane couldn’t bring himself to burn this one. I found it in his room and he told me every thing. I guess Sereno and Gint will be down for the house next week. I thought you should have this, as it’s your favourite. Think about it.

 

Cora

Bryant and Shanda looked over his shoulder. Henderson knew he couldn’t keep it. Cora might be able to buy off Sereno.

‘I’ve seen that before,’ Shanda said, frowning. ‘Somewhere.’

‘I don’t like it much,’ Bryant offered.

Henderson held Drew’s letter in one hand and Demeter and Baubo in the other. What was it old man Gage had said?…He knew now what he was going to do. He folded up his letter. Collision of soft grey brain with hard tin of pineapple chunks. A good way to go.

‘Make yourself at home,’ he said to Bryant and Shanda. ‘I’ll be back later.’

Henderson Dores walks briskly down Park Avenue towards the forties. It looks quite different now the rain has stopped and the warm midday sun makes everything steam and exhale. He finds it hard to believe that a few hours ago he was creeping through the neat shrubs of the central reservation, clad only in a cardboard box. It might have happened to a different person…

He cuts over on Fifty-seventh and then down Fifth. Huge puddles still prove obstacles to traffic and there is much irate hooting of horns, and colourful oaths fill the air. He turns onto Forty-seventh at the Eastern Airlines building and walks along it until he sees the delicatessen where Irene goes for lunch. He walks with measured purposeful tread.

If everyone wants to be happy, and everyone is going to die, then there’s really no option, he tells himself, suddenly seeing everything with a new clarity. The whole can of worms took on some sort of focus; the immense hill of beans arranged itself in some sort of order. Teagarden and his zencing, his own shyness, Beckman’s blinks, Melissa and her dogs, Bryant’s breasts, Gage’s boxing, Shanda’s baby, Cora’s sadness, the general’s WAC, Demeter and Baubo, and, finally, his own father’s fatal encounter with a flying tin of pineapple chunks one hot day in the Burmese jungle in 1943.

He pushes open the door. Irene sits with a pleasant young man, not unlike Pruitt Halfacre. Henderson approaches.

‘Irene,’ he says, ‘I’m back. It’s all over.’

Irene swings round, an ambiguous expression on her face.

‘DORES, YOU BASTARD!’

People scream, plates drop with a crash. Henderson crouches instinctively and the first shot smashes into the plasti-pine veneer above Irene’s booth.

Duane stands in the doorway, his fat face shiny with hot tears, shaking gun in both hands.

‘YOU STOLE HER YOU BASTARD!’

Henderson, bent double, plunges through the bright plastic strips that hang from the lintel of the kitchen door. Various oriental chefs in damp singlets are surprised to see him scramble through the cookers and kitchen units towards the rear exit. From behind him come more screams and crashing furniture as Duane pursues.

Henderson explodes into the mean alleyway between Forty-seventh and Forty-sixth, barging heavily into a tramp picking through the trash cans.

‘Sorry,’ Henderson gasps, regaining his balance.

The tramp’s face is familiar. The shades, the trilby, the raincoat…

‘The furrier at midnight—’

‘I
know
, ’ Henderson yells. ‘I know all about that now!’

He turns and runs up the alleyway, running as though his life depended on it (and it does), his legs pounding, his hands clawing air, striving with all his might and all his effort to reach the distant, sunlit vision of the teeming streets ahead.