Her ancient face was as blank as unmarked parchment as she threw up her arms, hands wafting at the air. Her body seemed to rise up at him, making him lurch back into the landing wall, and then she flopped down the stairs, with barely a bounce, like an old, discarded mop.
CHAPTER V
The gypsy guy with the beat-up hat and the Dobermans wasn't too sure about this. Still looked like he'd prefer to feed the stranger to the dogs.
'No,' Macbeth said, 'I don't even know her name.' Had to be easier getting to meet with the goddamn Queen. 'All I know is she isn't called Mrs Cairns.'
The guy's heavy eyebrows came down, suspicious. 'Who is it told you where to come?'
'Uh, Moira's agent. In Glasgow. Listen. I'm not with the police, I'm not a reporter.'
'OK, well, you just stay here, pal,' the gypsy guy said, and to make sure Macbeth didn't move from the gates of the caravan site he left the two dogs behind. Macbeth liked to think he was good with dogs, but the Dobermans declined to acknowledge this; when he put out a friendly hand, one growled and the other dribbled. Macbeth shrugged and waited.
The gypsy was gone several minutes, but when he returned he'd gotten himself a whole new attitude. Unbolting the gates, holding them back for the visitor. 'Wid ye come this way, sir…' Well, shit, next thing he'd be holding his hat to his chest and bowing. Even the Dobermans had a deferential air. Macbeth grinned, figured maybe the old lady had sussed him psychically, checked out his emanations.
Whatever, in no time at all, here's Mungo Macbeth of the Manhattan Macbeths sitting in a caravan like some over-decorated seaside theme-bar, brass and china all over the walls.
'I'll leave ye then, Duchess…?'
'Thank you, Donald.' Lifting a slender hand loaded up with gold bullion.
She was Cleopatra, aboard this huge, gold-braided Victorian-looking chaise longue. She had on an ankle- length robe, edged with silver. Had startling hair, as long as Moira's, only dazzling white.
'Well, uh…' This was bizarre. This was an essentially tricky situation. Awe was not called for. And yet this place was already answering questions about Moira that he hadn't even been able to frame.
She said, 'Call me Duchess. It's a trifle cheap, but one gets used to these indignities.'
Didn't look to be more than sixty. Younger by several centuries, he thought, than her eyes.
'And you'll come to the point, Mr Macbeth. Life is short.' He blinked. 'OK.' Swallowed. Couldn't believe he'd come here, was doing this. 'Uh… fact of the matter is… I spent some time with your daughter, couple nights ago.'
'Really,' the Duchess said dryly.
'No, hey, nothing like… See, I…' This was his first meeting with Moira all over again. Couldn't string the words together. 'Can't get her off of my mind,' he said and couldn't say any more.
'You poor man.' The merest shade of a smile in the crease down one check. 'How can I help?'
Acutely aware how embarrassingly novelettish all this was sounding, how like some plastic character in one of his own crummy TV films, he said solemnly, 'See, this never happened to me before.'
The Duchess had a very long neck. Very slowly she bent it towards him, like a curious swan. 'Are you a wealthy man, Mr Macbeth?'
'One day, maybe,' he said. 'So they tell me.' Thinking, if she asks me to cross her fucking palm with silver, I'm out of here.
'The feeling I'm getting from you…' Those ancient, ancient eyes connecting with his, '… is that, despite your name, you've always been very much an American.'
'That's that the truth,' Macbeth confirmed with a sigh. 'All we've got to do now is convince my mom.'
The Duchess smiled at last. 'I think I like you, Mr Macbeth,' she said. 'We'll have some tea.' Later she picked up on the theme. 'You're really not what you appear, are you?'
'No?'
The Duchess shook her head. Tiny gold balls revolved in her earrings.
'This worries you. You feel you've been living a lie. You feel that all your life you've tried to be what people expect you to be. But different people want different things, and you feel obliged, perhaps, to live up to their expectation of you. You feel…' The Duchess scrutinized him, with renewed interest, over her gold-rimmed bone china teacup. 'You feel you are in your present fortunate position because of who you are rather than what you can do.'
Macbeth said nothing. He hadn't come here for this. Had he?
'Sorry to be so blunt,' the Duchess said.
'No problem,' Macbeth said hollowly.
'This is your job perhaps. People think you can open doors?'
'Do they just,' said Macbeth.
'Now you've woken up, and you're thinking, am I to spend my life… serving up the, er, goods…? As a form of restitution? Paying back, even though I might be paying back to people who never gave me anything, or do I go out on my own, chance my arm…?'
There were subtle alterations in her voice. Macbeth felt goose-bumps forming.
The Duchess said, 'is there something more out there than piling up money? Even if that money's not all for me, even if it's helping the economy and therefore other people who might need the money more than me? Are there… more things in heaven and earth than you get to read about in the New York Times?'
Christ. He was listening to himself. By the time she sat back to sip more tea, he'd swear the Duchess had developed a significantly deeper voice and an accent not unlike his own.
Ah, this is just a sophisticated act. This is a classy stage routine.
'No it isn't,' the Duchess said crisply.
He almost dropped his cup. 'What…?' His hand shook.
'No, it isn't… going to rain,' the Duchess said sweetly. 'Although it was forecast. But then forecasts are seldom reliable, I've found.' He guessed she'd never been to college. He guessed she hadn't always talked so refined. He guessed her life-story would make more than one mini-series.
Then he guessed he'd better start keeping a tighter hold on his thoughts until he was someplace else.
'I'm not a fortune-teller, you know,' she said, like some women would say, what do you think I am, a hooker?
'I, uh… Moira never said you were,' Macbeth said uncomfortably.
'I appear to be able to do it. Sometimes. But I don't make a practice of it.' She poured herself more tea. 'So why did I let you in here?'
Macbeth didn't know.
'Because I'm worried about the child,' she said. 'That's why.'
He said, 'I can understand that.'
'Can you?'
'I'm, uh, a Celt,' he said, and she started to laugh, a sound like the little teaspoon tinkling on the bone china.
'To be Celtic,' she said, 'is more an attitude than a racial thing. Like to be a gypsy is a way of life.'
'What about to be a psychic?'
Her face clouded. 'That,' she said, 'is a cross to bear. She'll tell you that herself. It's to accept there's a huge part of your life that will never be your own. It's to realise there are always going to be obligations to fulfil, directions you have to go in, even though you can't always see the sense of it.'
'That's what she's doing right now?'
The Duchess nodded. 'She has things to work out. Oh, I don't know what she's doing and I wouldn't dream of interfering, she's a mature person. But I am her mother, and mothers are always inclined to worry, so I'm told. I was only thinking – coincidence – just before you arrived, I wish she had someone who cared for her. But she's a loner. We all are, I fear. We learn our lesson. We don't like other people to get hurt.'
