Holloway Falls (15 page)

‘I can see a young woman,’ she told him. ‘She’s standing at your shoulder. She’s smiling. It’s a very beautiful, very peaceful smile. She’s happy. She wants—yes, she wants to thank you. She wants to thank you for everything you tried to do.’ Patricia smiled. Eccentric English teeth: yellow, crooked and tea-stained. The colour of old, brittle sellotape. ‘This is not our home,’ she assured him. ‘This world is an illusion. Our true selves are vibrations in the astral plane. We are creatures of light, creatures of God.’

‘But Satan was the bringer of light,’ said Dryden.

‘Satan was an angel, too,’ she told him, with a smile.

Geoff and the others listened to her benevolently.

Geoff said: ‘So, in a sense, we’re all angels?’

‘Exactly!’ said Patricia.

By then Shepherd knew he was lost.

Back in the Green Room, Brazilian Tony handed them each a glass of tepid Chardonnay. Geoff thanked them in turn, but his on-screen lustre had faded. He seemed smaller, hunched and rumpled and weary. Rather than wine, he took a small glass of whiskey and water.

Patricia was brusquely coquettish with Dryden. Julian was peppery for being upstaged. They huddled in an awkward group. Nobody spoke to Shepherd until the first glass of Chardonnay was finished.

Then Dryden turned to him. Shepherd’s skin burst into gooseflesh. He felt the bumps race up his spine. His scalp went tight, as if sunburned. The hair on his forearms stood on end.

‘You all right?’ said Dryden.

‘Yes,’ said Shepherd. ‘Someone just walked on my grave.’

Dryden clapped his shoulder companionably. He was half Shepherd’s height and twice his width. Shepherd sensed tremendous physical strength.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Dryden said. ‘People
dance
on mine. And I’m not even in it yet.’ He cackled, his frog-wide mouth set with too many milky little teeth. Dryden knit his brow and examined Shepherd’s expression. He put his pumpkin head on one side. Then he jabbed Shepherd playfully in the sternum.

His voice had darkened, but he didn’t lower the volume. The others turned to look at them. Brazilian Tony put his hand on one hip and pouted.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Dryden. ‘About what anybody says. Don’t give it a thought. You were wrong. So what? At least you were trying to do a good thing.’

Shepherd didn’t answer.

Dryden said: ‘Are you worried about the programme?’

Shepherd hung his head. It didn’t seem possible to tell Dryden a lie.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I am, a bit.’

‘Well, don’t,’ said Dryden. ‘Don’t worry. It’ll be watched by a few thousand people who don’t give a toss about what’s being said, and who won’t remember it in ten minutes.’

Shepherd wanted to believe that.

‘Then why are you here?’

‘Because I’m
selling
something,’ Dryden said. ‘I’ve got a book coming out and I’m going on tour in a month or two.’

‘I don’t even know why I came,’ said Shepherd. ‘I didn’t want to.’

Dryden winked. He chortled. He clapped Shepherd’s shoulder and let his hand rest there.

‘Maybe something
told
you to come,’ he said. ‘Maybe some power brought you here, for some higher purpose.’

He fixed Shepherd with his laser eyes.

Shepherd was possessed of the odd sensation that his feet had unlatched from the floor. He imagined he was floating to the ceiling like a helium balloon.

A girl who looked like Chloe but who was not Chloe put her head round the door. She announced that Dryden’s car had arrived. He thanked her and tossed the remains of his wine down his craw.

‘Don’t you worry,’ he told Shepherd. ‘It doesn’t matter how you handled yourself or what you said: they’ll edit the programme the way they want to, anyway. That’s the name of the game. And then it’s broadcast—’ he rippled his fingers like seaweed. ‘And for a few minutes, it’s on a few screens in a few corners, in a few houses in a few cities in a small country nobody gives a toss about any more, and a few people might pay some passing attention to it. And then it’s gone, and, once it’s gone, it’s nowhere, forever.’ He looked at Shepherd with his head tilted to one side.

‘Anyway,’ he said. He offered his spadelike hand. ‘Nice to meet you. Keep in touch.’

Shepherd shook the hand, once. His skin crawled. He wiped his palm on his thigh. Dryden seemed not to notice. He kissed Patricia, shook Julian’s hand and left. Brazilian Tony showed him the way.

Like an afterimage of the sun, the sense of his presence lingered. It rendered them silent. When it had faded, they were left embarrassed in each other’s company. The light seemed to have dimmed. Their muttered voices echoed as if from hospital walls.

Shepherd waited until he was confident that Dryden’s car had safely departed, then he sloped over to Brazilian Tony like a head-hung yeti and pleaded quietly to be allowed home. Brazilian Tony seemed to think this was an exceptional idea and gambolled down the corridor, his clipboard clutched tight to his bony chest.

15

Shepherd was glad to get home. This time he didn’t bother to thank the driver, who still didn’t seem to give much of a shit either way.

Shepherd slammed the front door behind him and stomped upstairs, to the lodgers’ bathroom next to the unlet room on the third floor. The experience had been worse than he’d expected; worse than handing himself in at the police station. Hardly worth the £500.

He stepped into the bathtub and ran the shower hot. He shampooed his rasping head and sweaty beard with menthol Head & Shoulders. Then he washed his hairy body with Dove Cleansing Lotion. He turned off the shower and ran the bath, getting out to clip his finger- and toenails while the tub filled. He polished a squeaky portal in the steam on the bathroom cabinet mirror; trimmed the hairs in his nostrils and ears with a pair of scissors going rusty at the hinge. He stepped gingerly into the hot bath and, as far as he could, stretched out. His knees stuck out like pale, conical islands. He listened to the portable radio.

Later, with a stripy beach towel wrapped round his hairy belly, he padded up to the attic room and deodorized his armpits. He lay some freshly laundered clothes out on the bed and steamed dry.

He was trying not to think what he was thinking. His head swirled and eddied with complex connections.

He dressed in clean cargo trousers and a short-sleeved, checked shirt. He opened the creaking sash window. A cloud of the city filled the room. Late afternoon, late summer air; exhaust fumes and uncollected rubbish gone sweet with decay.

Downstairs, Lenny and Eloise were waiting for him. Lenny brought in a pot of tea and some Hob Nobs.

Eloise said: ‘How did it go?’

Shepherd sat. The sofa creaked like a sea-going galleon.

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I don’t know.’

She sat facing him, in an armchair whose covers had been repaired with duck-tape.

‘Was it that bad?’

He knuckled the tip of his nose.

‘It was awful.’

Stupidly, he thought for a moment that he might cry.

He told them about it. Eloise thought it was comical, in a pitiable way. But she was good enough to suppress her smile and nod and make supportive noises. Lenny was outraged. He stomped up and down the room, cursing. He punched his hand like Burt Ward playing Robin.

‘It’s disinformation,’ he yelled, with passion. ‘It’s fucking disinformation.’

Shepherd protested.

‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘It was all quite genuine.’

‘You were
set up
—’ Lenny brought himself to a standstill. He was breathing heavily with the exertion. Beads of sweat on his upper lip. His hair stuck up. He cupped an elbow and pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘That bloke,’ he said, ‘that presenter. I know him. He’s a known sceptic. Well known. Well, I say sceptic.
So-called
sceptic. I wonder whose pockets he’s in.’

Eloise laughed. ‘He’s not in
anybody’s
pocket,’ she said. ‘For God’s sake, Lenny. It’s a fucking late-night talk show on digital TV!’

Lenny pitied her naivety.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Oh, no, no, no.’

Eloise laughed.

She said: ‘Haven’t you had
enough
?’

Lenny said: ‘So, you think it’s coincidence that it was on Sky? Of all channels? You think that’s accidental? Grow
up
, Eloise.’

She held up her hands in disbelief. ‘Jesus,’ she said. ‘Whatever.’

She shook her head.

‘I don’t believe this,’ she said. ‘You’re just
losing
it, Lenny.’

‘Losing it, bollocks,’ he said. ‘This is an
injustice
. It’s a set-up. Putting Jack on screen with Rex Dryden is an attempt to discredit him …’

‘How can you
discredit
him any further?’ She caught Shepherd’s eye. ‘Sorry, Jack.’

(‘That’s all right,’ said Shepherd, but nobody was listening.)

‘Because Jack’s the real thing,’ said Lenny. ‘And Dryden’s a self-professed fraud. He’s a fucking spiv. He’s a wideboy. He’s wider than the sky. Having them on together is guilt by association.’

‘And why would they do that? Why would they bother?’

‘Because Jack was close to the
truth.
Jack was
on
to something.’

‘On to
what
?’
said Eloise. Her voice had ascended an octave. She turned to Shepherd and said: ‘I’m sorry, Jack, but I have to say this. He was
wrong
, Lenny. He didn’t get anything right.’

‘But he was
nearly
right.’

‘There’s
no such thing
as nearly right!’

Lenny munched malevolently on a Hob Nob.

Eloise stood. She forced a smile that quivered unsteadily.

‘Can’t we let this drop now?’ she said. ‘And get on with our lives? Can’t we just, you know,
move on
? I can’t remember a time when this wasn’t happening.’

‘Oh God,’ said Shepherd, who also wished it would stop. ‘Please yes.’

‘There,’ said Eloise. She pointed at Shepherd as if Lenny might not know where he sat. ‘There you go. Let’s call it a day, right here and now. Let’s not even watch the stupid programme.’

Lenny fell into an armchair and muttered something about Wittgenstein.

Eloise’s shoulders sagged. In her normal register, she said: ‘I fancy a drink. Does anybody fancy a drink?’

Sulkily, Lenny wiped crumbs from the corner of his mouth.

‘Go on then,’ he said. ‘I’ll have a Guinness.’

‘I meant,’ said Eloise. ‘Let’s go the pub.’

They agreed it was a good idea.

The Cricketer’s Arms was on the next corner, and it was early enough to get a table—although the only one available was placed in the corner, beneath the large, wall-mounted television. The sound was on mute, but the bar staff kept glancing towards the screen. The All-Blacks were playing.

Shepherd put £50 behind the bar. Eloise objected politely.

He said: ‘It’s my birthday.’

She said: ‘Is it really?’

He shrugged. ‘Why not? It might as well be.’

She squinted at him. Then she reached over the table and pinched his upper arm.

She said: ‘You’re really weird, sometimes.’

He rubbed at the pinch. Then he tugged at his earlobe.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘So would
you
be.’

‘Well, yes,’ she said. ‘I expect I would be.’

Deftly, he thought, Shepherd changed the subject. He asked after Eloise’s working day. Much of her attention recently had been given to a young autistic girl who possessed an unusual musical proficiency. After hearing a piece of music once, Mary could play it by ear, no matter how intricate the melody. Yet she was without interactive skills. She suffered brain blindness, an inability to conceive what someone might be thinking, or indeed that it might be possible for another to think. Her playing was without nuance; a clattering blitz of melody. Already the local television news had been in to film her. At her parents’ suggestion, she played the Rachmaninov Piano Concerto that had featured in
Shine
. There had been articles in the
Evening Standard
and the
Sunday Telegraph
. A BBC documentary crew were interested in following her progress for a year.

Eloise was unhappy about Mary becoming a minor local celebrity, made worse by her parents’ willingness to financially exploit her. Lenny didn’t think they could be blamed. He agreed it was distasteful—but it wouldn’t harm the girl. She was beyond humiliation. She was an android.

(This irritated Shepherd, who wondered why Lenny couldn’t just shut up for once and agree with Eloise.)

Eloise balked. She and Lenny quarrelled in a baiting, animated fashion that only a friend could know was amicable. Shepherd was largely excluded, but at least they weren’t talking about Joanne Grayling or William Holloway. Then Lenny went to the bar to refresh their drinks.

Eloise nodded in the direction of his knotty spine.

She said: ‘He cares more than he lets on.’

Shepherd looked into his empty glass.

‘Some men are like that,’ he said, draining a dreg that was not there.

‘He’s a bit of a puritan,’ she said. ‘Deep down. He has these very high moral standards. He expects too much of people. So he pretends to expect nothing.’

‘I hadn’t thought of it like that,’ said Shepherd.

Lenny squeezed through the pub crowd clutching their drinks and four packets of crisps to his chest. A man with long, thinning hair and a leather jacket began to pump money into the CD jukebox. They were forced to endure ‘Stairway to Heaven’ at ear-bleeding volume.

Lenny bellowed: ‘Have you been talking about me again?’

Eloise took her drink. She shouted at him: ‘There
are
other topics of conversation.’

He kissed her forehead.

‘Of course there are,’ he shouted back.

She reached up to slap the crown of his head. He slumped heavily on the greasy circular stool.

Shepherd spoke loudly into his ear: ‘Eloise was telling me what a caring person you are,’ he said. ‘Deep down.’

‘Was she now?’ Lenny yelled. ‘Well, it’s pretty deep down, then.’ He looked at his sternum. ‘Deeper than I can see.’

Eloise said: ‘You’re an arsehole, Kilminster. You
X-Files
geek.’

He smiled, a bit sadly, and opened a packet of crisps. He shouted into Shepherd’s ear, spitting moist cheese-and-onion crumbs.

He said: ‘A million times nothing is still nothing, you know?’

Shepherd wanted to laugh, but then he saw that Lenny was quite serious and he felt lonely and foolish. He remembered with photographic clarity his visit to Andrew Taylor’s house.

The pattern, the old pattern, was hissing and spitting behind his eyes. It would not go away. He was weary with the unending bleakness of it.

He said: ‘Let’s drink to that,’ and went to the bar. He returned with a bottle of champagne and three slightly grubby tulip glasses.

Eloise said: ‘What’s all this about?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Let’s raise a toast.’

‘To what?’

‘To Joanne Grayling.’

Shepherd poured. The glasses swelled with mousse.

They clinked glasses.

‘To Joanne,’ said Eloise.

With the evocation of her name, the atmosphere contracted. Shepherd topped up their drinks.

He said: ‘I have a confession to make.’

He saw that Eloise had anticipated him.

He turned away from her desperately entreating gaze. He looked at Lenny instead.

‘William Holloway,’ he said.

‘What about him?’

Shepherd sighed. For a moment he considered the wisdom of speaking.

Then he said: ‘He didn’t do it.’

Lenny set down his glass.

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Stairway to Heaven’ came to a merciful conclusion. Their ears rang with tinnitus.

Shepherd leaned over the table.

‘
It’s a Wonderful Life
,’ he said.

Eloise rolled her eyes. She downed her champagne and slammed the glass down hard on the table. Another song came on the jukebox. ‘Losing My Religion’.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘If you’re going to start this bollocks
all over again
, I’m off.’

She searched their expressions for any sign of hope. Then she swore under her breath and hastily gathered up her bag and jacket from the empty stool. She stormed from the pub. They watched her leave.

Then Shepherd told Lenny all about it.