she can see is a 4?4 Dodge, which has pulled up outside the hotel. Though its tinted-glass window is wound down, the driver remains concealed. The door opens and a fat man wearing a garish yellow and green shirt emerges, squinting in the sun, before staring at her. — Hey! Princess! he sings. She can tell he’s forgotten her name, as they’d only met once before: back in Edinburgh at his retirement do.
— Ginger! Lennox smiles. He gets up and hugs his old friend. Feels the increased girth. Ginger is a big brown leather suitcase wrapped in a Hawaiian shirt. He gets a thin smile back. — Look, Ray, I’d appreciate it if you didnae call me that here. I’ve never liked it, makes me sound like a fuckin nancy boy.
Lennox nods in taut acquiescence as Trudi reviews her elementary knowledge of Eddie ‘Ginger’ Rogers. A retired Edinburgh cop with nearly forty years’ service on the force. His first wife had died a year before his retirement. He had married Dolores Hodge, an American whom he’d met in a ballroom-dancing chat room. After some Internet romancing and a few transatlantic visits, they had tied the knot, Ginger moving over to his new bride’s home in Fort Lauderdale.
— What’s this? He notes Lennox’s bandaged hand. — Wanking injury? Then, aware of Trudi, he gives a contrite smile. They climb into the 4?4, Trudi in the back, and drive on to Washington Avenue, and down 5th Street. Soon they cross over a long bridge heading towards what Ginger tells them is Miami proper. Trudi watches a rusting, low-built sludge tanker as it creeps past some dazzling white cruise ships berthed at the docks, like a jakey sneaking into a society wedding, and then they’re on a five-lane freeway. It’s a mess: tagliatelle rather than spaghetti junction.
Ginger drives in the aggressive manner of the TV cop, perpetually jumping lanes. Trudi believed that Americans were generally decent drivers compared to the British, being used to travelling on roads actually designed for that purpose. Ginger seems intent on confirming his reputation for cavalier performances behind the wheel. He pulls out in front of some college kids in an unhooded convertible. Despite being in the wrong, his response to their blaring horn is to give them the finger, US style. — Spoiled little cunts, he chuckles, before snorting, — Think they’re entitled. Then he recklessly weaves in front of another car and is tooted again. — No hesitation: reservations are for yuppies and Indians, he grins broadly, glancing back at Trudi. — Awright, princess?
Her tight-stretched, tooth-bearing smile at the back of his head. One hand checks the seat belt; the other, white-knuckled, grasps the exit strap above the door.
Ginger’s section of Fort Lauderdale is situated right by the beach. The apartment is in the Carlton Tower Condominiums, a twenty-storey building behind a Holiday Inn, just one block from the Atlantic Ocean. Lennox has noted the relative proximity of the thin strip of beach to the road in comparison with the art deco district. Externally and from afar, the tower might have given the initial impression of British council flats, but closer examination makes Lennox revise his opinion. The ground level is opened up with floor-to-ceiling plate-glass windows. They step inside to a large lobby and reception area, the marbled floor and walls impressing him, and Trudi too, he can tell by the arch her biro-thin brows make. It is furnished with couches and coffee tables full of glossy magazines, and decorated with exotic and lavish floral arrangements, which it takes Lennox a couple of glances to ascertain are actually plastic. The concierge, a large black woman, sits behind the reception desk. She smiles at Ginger who waves cheerfully at her. — Nice woman, he says humbly, as if apologising to Lennox for his previous police- canteen racism, and underlining that it’s a thing of the past.
Lennox stifles a chuckle. Scots have schizophrenic views on the issue of ethnicity. As most of them never see a black face from one day to the next in that whitest of countries, they feel free to be either as racist or as right-on as they like, enjoying the extravagance of unearned certainty.
In the elevator, Ginger hits the button for the fourteenth floor. In a playful gesture, he gently and in slow motion punches Lennox’s shoulder, then winks at them both. Trudi grimaces in a nervous smile. They emerge into a tight corridor, seeming to herald a depressing uniformity of brown-doored rabbit hutches, before having their expectations again confounded as they enter an apartment both spacious and luxurious. It has an open-plan living room and kitchen, which leads through sliding glass doors out on to a balcony. There are two bedrooms, both with en suite facilities, in addition to another, larger bathroom.
Lennox can’t believe that a home with two bedrooms can have
— This is Dolores. Ginger makes the introductions to Lennox and Trudi, both of whom are greeted with great enthusiasm. — And this wee rogue here is Braveheart.
The beast evidently does not like Lennox; a shared ‘Skarrish’ heritage means nothing. It hatefully bares its small front teeth below the rubberlike gums. It’s a narky wee bastard, liable to attack, he reckons.
— Braaay-ve-
Then the dog seems to collapse a couple of inches and skulks slowly towards Lennox as he sits down on the couch. It briefly looks up as if to bark, but then drops at his feet, coiling around them. — See! Dolores sings in triumph. — He likes you!
— Aye, Braveheart, Lennox says warily, tentatively leaning forward and stroking the animal’s neck, becoming more bullish as his hand sinks into fur and he ascertains how thin it really is. Well chokable, he thinks, relaxing back into the sumptuous settee with cheery malice.
Dolores seems fascinated by Trudi. — Well, aren’t you a pretty one? she luxuriantly observes, looking her up and down appreciatively. Trudi’s coy embarrassment is evident, as her hand involuntarily moves to her hair. Then her face stiffens in anticipation of the wedding guest list rising further.
Dolores takes the bag she is carrying and waltzes gracefully across to the kitchen area. Ginger had said she used to teach dance. Lennox can see she’s light on her feet and in excellent condition apart from a bit of a distended stomach. Like Ginger, she has a sparkle in her eyes under that lacquered hair, which Lennox and some of the other boys on the force would habitually refer to as ‘shagger’s glint’. They wouldn’t be going quietly into old age.
Dolores and Ginger give Trudi and Lennox separate tours. Everything in the apartment is new: pristine, gleaming and dust-free. Lennox notices the smell; that slightly burnt aroma that many places in America seemed to have. It’s probably the cleaning agents they use. He wonders if the UK has a distinctive scent for American visitors and what it’s like. In the master bedroom, Ginger shows off his electronic coin distributor. — You put all the coins in and it sorts them out, up to twenty at a time. Automatically stacked and bound intae paper wrappers. Amazing, eh?
— If you accumulate that many coins, then why no just take them tae the bank?
— Fuck the banks. Ginger drops his voice, taps his skull and winks. — These cunts take the fuckin pish as it is.
In the other room, in spite of herself, Trudi is warming to the earthy candour of this American woman, who is older than her own mother. — My mom married a cop, and she told me not to make the same mistake, Dolores laments. — I did, twice. Two words of advice: short leash.
— I’ll bear that in mind.
Hearing talk of weddings, dresses and venues filtering through the walls, Ginger whispers to Lennox, — The girls seem to have hit it off. What say we slip our markers and I take ye somewhere special?
— Okay, Lennox cagily agrees, wondering how he can sell this to Trudi. The problem in acquiescing to the idea that he’s depressed, or even its more benign bedfellow, ‘under stress’, is that it intrinisically means the ceding of his moral assurances. The potential at least existed for every comment he made to be viewed as a symptom of the disease. And he senses that Trudi’s management of his supposed condition is about control (hers) and disenfranchisement (his). Her logic is that his thoughts will take him back to the trauma of his work, therefore all independent deliberation by him is inherently bad. She will replace this with
Just then Dolores reappears and announces, — I’m gonna take this beautiful lady of yours away for a little while, Ray, show her some of the bridal stores in town. I guess you boys will have a bit of catchin up to do.
— Aye, sound. Lennox registers Trudi’s sly smile, then Ginger’s raffish wink.
They wait for a few minutes after the women’s departure, then leave and get back into the Dodge. Driving west on Broward Boulevard, they pass a large police station before stopping at the Torpedo men’s club on 24th
