Rowley Boyd, looking uncomfortable, coughed discreetly and stood up, nervously sweeping back a few strands of lank, straw-colored hair from his forehead. “I just want to say that, ah, we might want to rethink tonight’s event entirely. Ivan is… well, I don’t know how to put it other than to say that he’s not the man he was.”
“As are none of us,” Audrey said. “And your point is?”
“I only mean to say that, well, that he doesn’t always… he’s not always… we don’t want to put too much, shall I say, stress on him, that’s all I mean to say.”
“I don’t think there’s much fear of that.” Adrian laughed. “I’ve never known anyone to be overstressed by testimonials to his own eminence.”
“No, you don’t understand,” Rowley persisted. “I’m suggesting that we eliminate the testimonials completely. Just present the awards and call it an evening. Keep it short. I say that entirely in his own interest. ”
Rowley was closer to Gunderson than any of them, and probably more in debt to him as well. Before the Europa Point dig, the Gibraltar Museum of Archaeology and Geology had been a virtually unfunded operation with a dedicated but unpaid part-time staff of a single archaeologist (Rowley), housed above a hole-in-the-wall Arab grocery store in George’s Lane. Now it was in an impressive old naval headquarters building on Line Wall Road, with a salaried staff of eight, the finest cast of the First Family skeletons in existence, a collection of stone tools from the site, and three magnificent, life-sized dioramas of prehistoric life at Europa Point, including a torchlit, affecting scene of the burial in progress. All of this was thanks to Ivan Gunderson, only partly because of his initial excavation and subsequent donation of the dig site itself. More important, Gunderson, who now lived in Gibraltar most of the year (he had other homes in Palm Beach and Aix-en-Provence) had been extremely openhanded in his financial support of the museum. He was by far its most generous and reliable donor.
“Oh, bosh,” Audrey said. “I spoke with Ivan by phone less than two weeks ago. He was very much his old self. He was very excited about the dinner.”
But Rowley wouldn’t be put off. “He has his moments, but I assure you, if you haven’t seen him recently, you’ll find him very much changed. He spends most of his time now, er, gluing pots.”
That got everyone’s attention. It wasn’t simply the notion of the celebrated Ivan Gunderson sitting around gluing ceramic shards together all day, it was the very idea of pots. Gunderson had never had any interest in pots. The European Neanderthals and early humans to which he had devoted the last six decades of his life had never managed to make one. It had taken another 15,000 years before someone in Japan came up with the first pot.
“Gluing pots?” Adrian repeated dully. “What kind of pots?”
Rowley, twisting his hands around one another, looked miserable. “Any kind. I just get them from a ceramics shop in Ronda. I, er, break them up with a hammer and bring them to him and he glues them together. He puts them on shelves and forgets where he put them, and I take them away and… and break them again and bring them back, and he… well, he glues them together again. He never seems to notice.”
There was shocked silence. Something squeezed Gideon’s heart. “What does he imagine he’s doing?” he asked quietly.
“I tell him I take them to the museum,” Rowley said wretchedly. “Not that he asks very often.”
“Is it Alzheimer’s?”
“We don’t know. I suppose so, but he won’t see a doctor. He becomes angry if it’s brought up.”
Audrey was furious. “Rowley, for God’s sake, I wish you would have told me this before. I’d never have arranged the damned dinner. Oh, the poor man. We’ll have to cancel it. Oh, this is dreadful.”
“Aw, honey,” Buck said, “he’ll love it, you’ll see.”
For once he had no effect on her. “Oh, poor Ivan. I had no idea-”
“No, no,” Rowley interrupted, “Buck’s right. Ivan is looking forward to it tremendously. He’s been talking about it all week. It would be a terrible disappointment to him to call it off.”
Audrey rounded impatiently on him. “So then what exactly is it that you’re suggesting?”
“I’m suggesting that we have the reception and dinner as planned – moving things briskly along – and then present him with his awards.” Here he was referring to the Horizon Foundation’s V. Gordon Childe Lifetime Achievement Award in Archaeology, to be conferred by Audrey, and the annual Mons Calpe Medal from the Gibraltar Historical Association, which Rowley himself, as director of the museum, was to present.
“And then we simply call it a night and go home,” Rowley continued. “No testimonials. It’s really his awards that he’s so excited about.”
“No testimonials at all?” said Adrian bleakly.
Rowley offered an apologetic shrug. “Well, a few words with the awards, of course, but I really think it best that we don’t do any more than that. He tires easily, you see, and when that happens, his mind tends to… his memory seems to… well, I fear that an hour of testimonial after testimonial would simply tax him too much.” Another shrug, equally apologetic.
“It seems like the best thing to do,” Gideon said, his spirits low. Others offered reluctant agreement. Everyone was disappointed. And depressed.
“As you may know, we have a similar situation arising in a few days, and we’ve been struggling with what to do about that one too,” Rowley said by way of appeasement. “We’ve come to the same conclusion. No long addresses.”
As Gideon knew, a public event was set for the day after tomorrow, at which the first shovelful of dirt was to be turned at what would eventually be the Europa Point Prehistoric Site and Ivan S. Gunderson Visitor Center. Ivan, who had matched the public funding pound for pound, was supposed to make a speech and also have yet another award, the Honorary Freedom of the City of Gibraltar, bestowed on him by the territory’s minister of culture.
Audrey was not that easy to appease. “I see,” she said stiffly. “And assuming that we hold our own little dinner at all, can we be sure he’s going to remember to come?”
“Absolutely. I’ll be collecting him myself.” Rowley hesitated. “He does have good days, you know. More often than not, actually. Perhaps this will be one.”
“Let us fervently hope so,” said Audrey with a roll of her eyes.
EIGHT
It started off well enough.
The Rock Hotel, a long, white, six-story art deco building situated above Gibraltar town on the lower flanks of the Rock itself, and directly overlooking the Alameda Botanical Gardens, is by most accounts Gibraltar’s finest, its register adorned with the names of royalty real, cinematic, and literary – Prince Andrew, Prince Edward, Sean Connery, Peter Sellers, Alec Guinness, John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway. Its particular gem is its marble- balustered Wisteria Terrace, a trellis-shaded patio set among lush plantings, filled with the sounds of birds, and looking out toward the wide bay with its tankers at rest, and in the distance, the gleaming rooftops of the Spanish town of Algeciras on the far shore. It was here that the participants gathered for cocktails and exotic canapes – lobster-and-fennel wontons, mini-eclairs with creamed prawns, ham rosettes on duck liver croutons – before going in to dinner.
Before that, most of them had already gathered in Gideon and Julie’s room for predrink drinks. Among the hotel’s famous amenities (which included a bright yellow rubber duck in every guest bath and a supply of lollipops) was the provision each afternoon of a decanter of sherry and another of Scotch to every room. Gideon and Julie had earlier invited Pru to join them for a chat. She had been spotted carrying her Scotch decanter down the hall by Buck and Audrey and she had invited them to do the same, picking up Corbin and Adrian on the way. Even Rowley, who wasn’t staying at the hotel, had stopped by for a few words with Audrey – and a small glass of sherry – before driving off to pick up the guest of honor. As a result, most of the attendees were already pretty well oiled – relaxed and good-humored – before they ever got to the Wisteria Terrace.
As was appropriate, Ivan Gunderson, urbane and smiling in the cream-colored, subtly beige-striped blazer and midnight-blue silk ascot that had become his trademark dress, was the center of attention, and he performed brilliantly. Straight-up martini in hand, he graciously if somewhat regally mingled with the others, making sure to allow time for everyone. He had been quite charming on being introduced to Julie, bowing over her hand – for a moment Gideon wondered if he was going to kiss it – and wryly apologizing, in his elegant, agreeable tenor, for the
