the winner -I remembered the famous tennis player, and looked curiously at him now in his loose dusty flannels, a damp comma of hair pasted to his high tanned forehead – and Miss Carmencita Barrera, the celebrated motion picture actress, all winking sequins and lace, her face as white as pipeclay…
'The actress?' I said.
'No, the woman two along from her.'
I peered closer. An elegant woman, in her fifties perhaps, still attractive, applauding, a faint ambiguous smile on her face. The focus was sharp, I could make out the paisley motif on her dress but I could not judge whether her smile was one of polite boredom or polite enthusiasm. Between her and the actress was an elderly man with white hair in a dark suit; on her other side a naval officer of some exalted rank; the other figures were blurred. No-one else apart from the actress and the tennis star was identified.
Carriscant took the page away from me and folded it carefully, slipping it back into its wallet.
'That is her,' he said simply and with curious authority. 'I was never sure, never really sure, that's why I needed to find Paton. He was the only one who could confirm it.'
'Confirm what?'
'That she was – that she is – who I thought she was.'
'And he did?'
'Without hesitation. Without a moment's hesitation.' He let a slow shuddering breath pass from him. 'And now I know. You can't imagine what it's like, after thirty-three years.'
'Dr Carriscant, you have to tell me what you're talking about. There's no point if I don't-'
He held up a hand to stop me and then breathed in and out, a dozen deep breaths as if to invigorate himself, as if he had been asleep for a long time. It was most irritating.
'All this time,' he began, 'I thought she might be dead, you see. Thought I'd never know what happened. But then I found this picture, by some… some miraculous, some devious twist of fate. And now I know she's alive.'
'But the picture's almost ten years old.'
'But she's alive. She looks – ' Tears bulged at his lids, his voice thickened. 'I know she is waiting for me.' He said this with adamantine confidence, and then turned to me.
'We'll go and find her.'
'We? What're you talking about?
'You and me, Kay – dear Kay. We will go to Lisbon and find her.'
ELEVEN
It is hard to find a small cemetery in Los Angeles. And I was set on my son being buried somewhere small and private, a place where there would be few passers-by, where there would be fewer incurious glances than in some multi-acre necropolis or the vast landscaped death park that is the norm.
I found an old, partially rebuilt mission at the north end of the San Fernando Valley where, by dint of a hefty donation to the restoration fund, I was provided with a plot in one corner, shaded by a grove of eucalyptus trees. I go there from time to time, about once a month, trying not to make a ritual out of my visits, in good moods and bad, but inevitably the place has forged its associations (I have no real memory of him, after all) and now it is the rattle of dry leaves, the tomcat smell of eucalyptus, even the filigreed shadow of sun through branches, that conspire to remind me of my dead son.
I spent some time on the headstone also: what does one inscribe when a life has only spanned sixteen days? 'Those whom the Gods love… '? 'Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher, all is vanity'? In the end I chose white marble, very simple, and had the name and the date inlaid in bronze. COLMAN BROCKWAY, 10 April 1930-26 April 1930. Over the years since his death the verdigris on the bronze lettering has run and stained the marble beneath, like green tears. Green tears for my blue baby. Coleman Brockway came into the world with a stacked deck against him from day one – he had a hole in his heart.
Mrs Luard Turner wore a white fox wrap with her aquamarine suit even though the day was hot and the sky above was a changeless blue. She was heavily made up too, like an actress, I thought, with a thick base of panstick and powder over skin that was beginning to show signs of slippage and slackening. I closed the door of the big closet in the bedroom.
'You'll notice the house has many closets,' I said, 'and that many of them are twice as large as is normal.'
'What? Why, yes, I did think -'
'The idea, you see, is that there should be no clutter. Everything can be stowed away.' I smiled at her, I was starting to hector, I knew, a habit I fall into when I suspect someone is not really paying attention. 'I can't stop people owning possessions, but I can encourage them to keep them out of sight.'
'Oh, sure,' she smiled back, uncertainly. 'I, ah, like to be tidy too.'
'Everything in this house has been thought through, Mrs Turner. Every proportion is precise. Wherever possible I have built the furniture in – like the kitchen, like that unit of drawers and shelves in the living room- because you simply cannot, in a house of this style, of this, if I may say so, ethos, make a – '
'I'm sorry? Eeth what?'
'- you can't just put in ordinary furniture, your average sofa, armchairs, etcetera.'
'I can't?'
'Where you need new furniture I would ask you – actually, I would beg you-to go to specialist furniture makers. Order items that will suit the house, you'll never regret it. I can give you half a dozen names of-'
'Mrs Fischer is very proud of her house,' George Fugal interrupted with a nervous laugh.
'Oh, sure,' Mrs Turner said, looking around. 'Ah, is the bathroom functioning?'
I showed her where it was.
'It's a done deal,' George said. 'She's crazy about the place.'
'Could have fooled me. Is she all right? She seems sort of distant, not in touch. Is there -'
'Kay, I have ten per cent in escrow. She's not fooling around.' He looked nervously over his shoulder and lowered his voice. 'Will I be able to hear the noise of the flush? I mean here, in this room?'
'Probably. Why?'
'Could we go downstairs? It makes me uncomfortable, you know, when she comes out – I hate that moment.'
George and I descended the stairs noisily, our feet clattering on the bare boards, so Mrs Turner could flush the toilet without fear of embarrassment.
'I think you could have made these stairs wider.'
'George, I don't advise you on points of law.'
Mrs Luard Turner duly appeared and was duly satisfied. She forgot to ask but I still gave her a list of names of cabinet makers who could provide her with dining room tables and easy chairs that would not destroy the clean lines of my perfect rooms. It was agreed that the contracts would be signed in Fugal's offices the next day at 10 a.m.
I drove west on Sunset and turned up Normandie on to Hollywood. Carriscant was pacing up and down outside the front door of my building. It was five days now since our trip to Santa Fe and I had not seen him in the meantime, all my efforts having been concentrated on ensuring the house was ready for sale. The by now increasingly familiar aggregate of emotions coagulated inside me as I pulled up at the kerb and I saw him hurry over – a tacky mass of surprise, curiosity, fractiousness and fatigue. The trip to Santa Fe had proved too sustained and rich a diet of Salvador Carriscant. For the moment smaller doses were what was required.
Carriscant followed me into my office, close on my heels, as if he was expecting me to make a run for it; I could sense his impatience and his excitement brewing in the air around us but I refused to be cajoled or hurried, taking my time checking my messages with Mary and spending five minutes with Ivan looking over the preliminary
