Flight (24 page)

‘So what did happen?'

‘I'll read you this bit. Remember it's only a summary, though, not the real thing yet.' She picked up her typescript and read:

‘Really nothing happened – except that they never used the word “love” to each other, apart from putting “lots of love” at the end of faxes and e-mails. The way they were together when they were first going out was all in the past – not that either of them thought about it very much, he hardly at all. The house, and his wife, always seemed in good order when he did come home, and his travelling life just seemed normal. “My wife and I are very good friends,” he would say to women in bars in the evenings in all the countries he travelled to. At home, she was saying on the phone, “Yes, he's away as usual, I'll come on my own, if that's all right?”

‘Then he had to retire, because of his age, and he was at home all the time. It was a bit awkward to start with. They slept in separate rooms, because their sleeping patterns were so different. It was just for a while, they said. But he never moved back into what was now her bedroom. They were still good friends, and they never had rows. On a good day, he thought, This was really all I wanted, all along, and tried to believe it. On a good day, she thought, There is still time … and tried to believe it.'

Julie put down the typescript.

‘So what happens next?' asked Martagon.

‘Nothing happens,' said Julie. ‘Maybe they've had children, maybe they haven't, I haven't decided yet. They grow older. One of them dies, and then later the other one dies. That's it.'

‘Is it a tragedy?'

‘I don't know. That's what I have to work out. I'm calling it “The Worst Scenario” like I told you, but perhaps it should really be “The Best Scenario”, or “An Everyday Story”.'

‘I bet you were thinking of Tom and his marriage when you started writing it.'

‘Kind of. He read my first go at an outline.'

Martagon was stung. ‘OK, so what did he say?'

‘He laughed. He said I'd missed out one important thing. He wouldn't say what, he said I had to find out for myself. I asked him again what it was, yesterday.'

‘Yesterday?'

‘Oh, we still talk. He worries about me.'

Martagon, outraged, sat bolt upright in the bed. ‘For God's sake, Julie. That man wants to have his cake and eat it. You shouldn't have anything to do with him any more. He's just messing you about. You should tell him to bugger off.'

‘He's away anyway now for a bit, for meetings with his Grid Group people. Apparently Orford Mulhouse has taken a huge villa for them all, in Biarritz.'

‘Orford Mulhouse?'

‘That's the Texan who finances the Grid Group. I met him with Tom, I must say he's extremely nice, for a rich person. Very modest, very quiet. Someone you can really talk to.'

‘What did you talk to him about?'

‘I told him about what I did, and he said he'd like to have me in the Group, working for them, they were going to be looking for an administrator for the London office. It'd be in Queen Anne's Gate, Martagon, right beside St James's Park – a bit of a change from Hackney! But I don't suppose anything will come of it.'

‘Mulhouse. There's a rich American woman called Nancy Mulhouse who lives most of the time in Provence.'

‘Yeah, that's his wife. He told me about her and her French house, when I was telling him about my family, about Giles, and about Harper Cox doing the new airport for Provence. She's in Biarritz with them now. Why, do you know her?'

‘No, no, I've never met her … Small world, though. It would be difficult for you, I'd think, working for the Grid Group, now that it's all over with Tom.'

‘I don't think so. I'm perfectly all right talking to him now, it doesn't upset me, not since you … not since we…'

He looked down at Julie's face on the pillow. She was sweet, not wanting to say the words, not knowing what words to say. Martagon lapsed back into a comfortable position in the bed and took her hand in his. ‘And when you spoke to him yesterday, did he say what it was that you had left out of the story?'

‘Passion.'

‘Passion … I suppose he meant, what did they do about sex.'

‘He said you can't suppress passion, it always has to spurt out somewhere.'

‘He's the expert,' said Martagon.

‘He said the husband would have had adventures with Thai bar-girls and affairs with his secretaries.'

‘Like
he
has.' Like most men, thought Martagon, remembering the scene at the New Otani.

‘I said to Tom, “It never says in the story that he did not. I just don't choose to spell it out.” And I said to him, “Why just the husband anyway? The wife might have had affairs too.” And Tom said, “Opportunity.”'

‘Opportunity. Your brother's favourite word.'

‘Not in that sense.'

‘I think you're being defeatist,' said Martagon. ‘You're writing that story to prove that there's no point in committing yourself to anyone, let alone marrying.'

‘Listen who's talking.'

‘I'd get married, now,' said Martagon, ‘if I couldn't bear not to, if I was so taken up with someone, if she'd got under my skin so far that life without her wouldn't be worth living and I wanted to be with her all the time.'

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her something about Marina. Perhaps not everything, but something.

‘But she wouldn't be with you all the time, would she? You'd always be rushing off to the airport, like in my story. Giles and Amanda manage, though.'

‘Solid as rock. Your sister-in-law isn't perfect—'

‘She's a real cow sometimes.'

‘Right. But she provides what Giles needs. She knows what's right and what's wrong. He's not always sure, he'd be all over the place without her. Besides, Giles is basically a settler. Home matters to him. Everyone's either a settler or an explorer.'

‘I'm a settler and an explorer. I am at home wherever I happen to be with Fasil. At the moment it's this flat, though that could change.'

‘You're a nomad, taking your tents around with you,' said Martagon, looking round at the colourful confusion, and the folkweave curtains shutting out the night. ‘Sweet!' he added mockingly – though he did find her shoestring home-making sweet.

‘And you're an explorer, I suppose.'

‘Certainly. Though recently I've diagnosed in myself symptoms of becoming a settler.'

‘How very
un
settling for you! By the way, did you know that Amanda's going to have a baby? She's only just found out for sure.'

‘No! That's wonderful. I must give them a call.'

‘You might see if they'd like us to go round for supper on Sunday, after we've been out with Fasil, like you said we would, if it's a nice day.'

‘Good idea,' said Martagon. One of the family.

*   *   *

I can stop this whenever I want. It is just for now.

A person who is trying to do good feels elated when, occasionally, he does something not good. Something secret, something for
me.
It puts things in proportion. Marina had said something to that effect, hadn't she?

In any case my being with Julie is not being bad. It is helping her to get over the débâcle with Tom. She seems happy with me. Good things can be the result of bad things, such as deceit.

He took Julie to see the film
Magnolia.
He told her she looked a bit like Melora Walters.

‘Uh-huh,' said Julie. ‘She was a loser. And you're the nice cop, right? Wanting to do good?'

*   *   *

What happens, happens. Frogs falling out of the sky, like in
Magnolia,
or whatever. Martagon has put his house in Child's Place on the market. Waiting for the estate agents to come and value it, he stood at his bedroom window looking out into the sunlit street. On the other side, a little way down, there was a yellow crane in the roadway, and a removals van. A grand piano hung from a top-floor window-frame, half in half out, secured by thick yellow strapping. The great hook of the crane, after two failed attempts, latched on to the strapping. As the crane's neck turned, the piano lurched as if it were going to crash down – and then floated lightly free of the window-space, in a wide arc, over the trees, over the parked cars, swinging slowly round and round, down and down, until it landed gently on the sloping backboard of the van. Once unhooked, it reassumed the dead weight proper to a piano, as the removals men struggled to get it up the ramp into the van.

Two young men were walking up the street. They were a pair, with short haircuts, identical dark blue suits, neat white shirts, and ties. They stood out among the T-shirts and baggy khakis of Earl's Court denizens like extra-terrestrial aliens. They could only be estate agents. Or Jehovah's Witnesses. As Martagon opened his front door to them he half expected to be asked if he were saved.

‘It's not had anything much done to it in recent years, has it?' asked number-one agent, who was taller and had a louder voice, after Martagon had shown them round. ‘When would you say it had last been redecorated?'

‘Oh – in the early eighties, I should think. I haven't had time to do much to it. I put in the power-shower.'

‘The whole house needs work.' Number one caressed his mobile phone. Stop that wanking, said Martagon. In his head.

‘We haven't seen a kitchen like this for a long time, have we?' said agent number two. ‘Pure seventies. Amazing.'

Martagon felt like a worm. He looked at his kitchen. It seemed just like any other kitchen to him. He didn't know what they were talking about.

‘It's a nice area. There's a lot of demand. But, like I say, the house needs work. I suppose you wouldn't think of decorating throughout and putting in a new kitchen before we market it?'

‘No, I don't think so … What could you ask for it the way it is?'

The agents looked grave and paced about from the living room back to the kitchen, with number two agent in his superior's wake, imitating his demeanour.

Number-one agent sighed – then named a sum that seemed to Martagon, who had not been following the escalation of the London property market, to be astronomical. ‘That's fine by me,' he said.

He had taken a great step towards his new life, and felt nothing at all. Weightless. When they had gone he picked up his sports bag and left the house straight away. He went for a swim.

*   *   *

What was it about Julie? Martagon was hooked by her physical frailty, her youth, her smallness, her unmarked defenceless self. She never asked him anything about his personal life, about other women, other attachments. She made it so easy.

I love Julie. I've known her a long time, and she is lovable. I'm not
in
love with her like I am with Marina. She doesn't inhabit my imagination. I don't have to think about her all the time. She does not dazzle me or make me shake, like Marina does. She is not a beautiful woman like Marina. She is not beautiful at all, but she is – what? She is flawless. She is a mother, for God's sake, but she still seems as new and fresh as Fasil. She smells of biscuits. So does Fasil. They both smell of biscuits. Her silky pale hair when she has washed it, falling like water. I might feel the same tenderness for her if she was a boy, or my sister. But, no, I wouldn't. When I saw her naked I wanted to consume her and be consumed by her and made pure. As if she were some healing drug. It's about her awkward grace, her thin round arms, her little tits standing out from her ribs, the shallow curves of her, and all of a piece, and her not knowing, not understanding, what she is – flawless.

I can stop this whenever I want. It is just for now.

A bad person lets other people behave responsibly, while he exploits their honesty and reaps the benefits. Like Tom Scree. Am I like Tom Scree? I haven't damaged Julie or Marina, because neither will ever, ever know about the other. If I were to ‘confess' to both or either, it might make me feel better but would only make them miserable, and screw everything up.

But if actions have consequences so do inactions. There are silent lies. There are sins of omission as well as sins of commission. What are sins? What someone decides they are. A bagful of torn scraps of newspaper. Why did I avoid thinking at all about my father's unfaithfulness? Did I know I was capable of behaving like him? Get real – all men are capable of unfaithfulness. Lots of men don't even think of unfaithfulness
as
unfaithfulness, but as something that just might happen when you are away from your partner. Virtue is its own reward. What is virtue? What is the reward of virtue? You tell
me.
There must be more to being a good person than just being a well-socialized man who keeps the rules. It's not an absolute, anyway. It depends on your particular society's values and attitudes. Any intelligent person must accept some and reject others. I have a perfect right to do what I want to do. It's my life, no one's in danger of being damaged but me, and it's no one's business but my own.

Nevertheless, Martagon knew that he would have to say something about his plans to Julie.

*   *   *

Sunday was a fine day with a high wind. Martagon, in the old Porsche, picked up Julie and Fasil in the morning and they drove out of London. Into England. Julie sat beside him with the map on her knees, and Fasil was in the back. They drove through the Cotswolds as far as Tewkesbury, where they had lunch in the garden of a pub on the river: swans, pleasure boats, great overhanging trees tossed by the wind.

Afterwards they drove off again into the midsummer countryside, looking for somewhere to rest and where Fasil could run around and play. Driving slower now, in the lanes, looking for somewhere to stop. On the outskirts of a village in the lee of Bredon Hill, Julie spotted a ‘For Sale' sign at the opening of a track. ‘That looks interesting,' she said.