seemed to breathe from the alfalfa grass and the manzanita trees.
I looked again at Carriscant. He sat rigid, now, tense, his teeth chewing vaguely on his bottom lip. His eyes seemed lost, distant, barely aware of his surroundings. It was as if he had never decided to come on this trip of his own volition, but was being led here somehow, like a prisoner to a scaffold, or a conscript to a battlefield, passive, powerless to change whatever would ensue. I felt sorry for him, and oddly protective, aware suddenly of his strange helplessness in this big country, and was glad that I had come with him.
Dogs set up a barking as we drew up in front of the ranchhouse, a new building, with stone gables and a long shady porch with bright borders of flowers along its facade. I told a Mexican ranch hand that we were here to see Mr Bobby and we were directed to the front door where a maid duly showed us into a small parlour. Presently, a woman, not much older than me, joined us and introduced herself as Estelle Bobby. I had her placed as the daughter but it soon became apparent she was a new wife. She was shy and pretty with slightly bulging blue eyes and fair hair. If Bobby was in his late sixties he had a thirty-year start on his wife, it was clear.
I introduced myself and Carriscant, who was by now so totally subdued that I felt like his chaperone. When I said his name it seemed to mean nothing to her.
Estelle Bobby directed us to chairs as if she had learned her manners from a correspondence course.
'My husband will be back within the hour,' she said. 'He's out riding. May I pertain what your visit is concerning?'
I turned to Carriscant.
'I, ah, I'm an old friend of your husband,' he muttered, gracelessly. 'I haven't seen him in over thirty years…'
'We were in Santa Fe on business,' I improvised. 'Mr Carriscant thought it would be worth calling in on the off chance.'
'Certainly, of course, you're more than welcome,' Mrs Bobby said and went off to fetch us some coffee while we waited.
Two cups later, with Mrs Bobby busying herself elsewhere in the house, we heard the sound of a horse's hooves and saw a neat buggy with a high-stepping bay between the shafts enter the yard and move out of sight behind the back of the house. I glimpsed a large stout man at the reins, quite bald and with a big wide moustache. We heard a rear door open and the sound of voices conversing. I turned to Carriscant. He was pale, his mouth slack.
'I feel sick, Kay,' he said, hoarsely. 'I think I'm going to vomit.'
He extended his hand shakily and, without thinking, I took hold of it and squeezed.
'Come on, drink some coffee, you'll be fine.'- 'I think we should leave. Now.' Panic lit his eyes.
'Don't be ridiculous. We've come all this way. What's he done to you, this man?'
Carriscant shook his head wordlessly. To give him some time I rose to my feet and went through to the hall, closing the parlour door behind me. Paton Bobby was emerging from the kitchen. Under his perfectly smooth, shiny pate he had a square seamed face, with kind eyes, and a wide neatly trimmed grey moustache that effectively bisected his face from ear to ear. He was broad-shouldered and carried his big belly easily, almost proudly. Some men seem to suit being fat and Paton Bobby was one of them, comfortable, attractive even, in his solid obesity.
He shook my hand and I introduced myself and apologised for arriving unannounced.
He looked at me shrewdly. 'My wife says this gentleman is an old friend of mine. I have no old friends called Tarrant.' He had a slow easy voice, with a harder rumble somewhere at the back of his throat. I saw a leather cigar-holder, like a Pan's pipe, jutting from the breast pocket of his jacket.
'No,' I said carefully, flashing a smile at Mrs Bobby. 'Not Tarrant. Carriscant. Dr Salvador Carriscant.'
The genial curiosity on Paton Bobby's face vanished instantly, transformed completely into an expression of astonishment that would have done justice to a cartoon character. His brows arched, his eyes wide, his open mouth forming a soundless 'What?' He began to blink rapidly.
'Salvador Carriscant?' he repeated. 'Are you out of your mind?'
'No, Paton, she's not.'
We turned to see Carriscant, framed square in the parlour doorway, composed, clear-eyed. Paton Bobby took half a step back, as if to focus better, still frowning, staring.
'My God Jesus Christ,' he said softly, almost fearfully, his voice ragged with emotion. ' Salvador.'
And at just that moment I felt a flush of anger rinse through me. I was so ignorant, had been so wilfully kept in that state that to witness now the profound shock of this reunion, to see plainly its melodramatic impact, made me feel used and exploited. Carriscant vigorously, two-fistedly shaking Bobby's hand, the two of them manfully loud in their mutual exclamations of astonishment… This was the craven fellow who moments ago was threatening to vomit, who needed his hand reassuringly squeezed. I stood there watching them and resented, with special force, the way this man had insinuated himself so deeply into my life already. And with such ease… What did I owe him? What hold had he over me? What responsibilities were due? None, was the quick and simple answer and I resolved to have nothing further to do with him and his bizarre private schemes.
'What's going on?' I said, a little too abruptly. 'What is there between you two?'
Bobby turned, surprised. 'Didn't he tell you? My God, Salvador was-'
'-Later, Kay, please,' Carriscant interrupted, courteously. 'If you don't mind. I have to talk to Paton first.'
'Fine. I'll be in the car. Let me know when you're ready to leave.'
I sat in the car for ten minutes, maddened and cross at myself, until the stickiness of the hot leather under my thighs drove me outside again. I paced around smoking a cigarette watched with only the mildest curiosity by the taxi driver, an old taciturn hacker called Arthur Clough, who had large uneven yellow teeth and a persistent sniff. From where I was standing I could see the top of Paton Bobby's head, which seemed to do nothing but nod all the time. I asked Arthur if he knew of Bobby.
'Sure,' he said. 'I, think he used to be sheriff of Los Alamos – and didn't he run for mayor of Santa Fe once? After he came out of the army or something. I seen his face in the paper a while back.'
He accepted one of my cigarettes and smoked it fastidiously, like a Victorian dandy, held palm upward between thumb and forefinger.
Carriscant and Paton Bobby came to the front door about an hour later. From my position, although I could not swear to it, it seemed as if Bobby had been weeping, but the idea seemed so incongruous as to be almost incredible. But his posture was stooped, that canted-back, spread-legged confidence seemed absent, now, and I distinctly heard him say as they made their farewells: ' – I hope you can forgive me, Salvador.'
'Of course,' Carriscant said, with what sounded like genuine feeling. 'I never blamed you, Paton. Never. You were doing your job, and,' he paused, 'and it was a difficult time.'
Carriscant climbed into the car beside me, stiff-faced, upset. He sat back in his seat and closed his eyes.
'Poor Paton,' he said.
'What's happening?' I said, full of angry curiosity. 'You can't keep this from me any more.'
'Oh, Kay, Kay, give me a moment.'
The car pulled away from the house. Paton Bobby had not lingered on the porch. Carriscant looked at me and managed a smile of sorts.
'I'm sorry, Kay… It's not fair, Kay, I know, but this was crucial, essential for me, my dear Kay, if you could only -'
'Stop saying my goddamn name!'
My vehemence seemed to shake him out of his patronising complacency, his sense of triumph. For some sort of victory had ensued in that house, long overdue, I suspected, and he was savouring it. In the event, he stopped talking and reached inside his coat and drew out a small leather wallet, which he opened. Inside it was the folded page of an illustrated magazine. I glimpsed an advertisement for a beer I did not recognise and some phrases in Spanish, or so I thought. Without further explanation Carriscant handed me the sheet and I spread it open on my knees. On the page there were six photographs with captions beneath them. The language was Portuguese, I now saw, and the pictures appeared to be of routine society occasions or news events. My eye caught a wedding, an arm-waving top-hatted politician making a speech, an elaborate villa damaged by fire. Carriscant's finger indicated the bottom righthand photograph. A man in tennis whites was being presented with an enormous silver trophy by a flamboyant young woman in a cloche hat and many strings of pearls. I noticed the date at the bottom of the page: 25 May 1927. I glanced at the caption trying to translate it. A charity tennis match… Jean-Claude Riverain
