or cicadas – he did not know the difference – went on singing. There was no money in stopping them. And no means of preventing or franchising the neatly etched half-moon that hung above the gas station.
Tonight, however, his pleasure was marred. Parked thirty feet away from his motel-room door was a black Lexus, and climbing into the driver's seat was Barnard. Standing on the passenger side, waiting to get in, with that same bag at his feet, was Tarpin. As he opened his door he noticed Beard and half smiled and made a knife of his forefinger and drew it across his throat. The engine started, the headlights came on, Tarpin got in with his luggage and the car reversed from its space and pulled out of the parking lot. Baffled, Beard watched them go, and remained on the spot after they had disappeared. Then he shrugged and went over to the office to tell the receptionist to let Melissa know where he could be found, then walked across the road to the Blooberry and arrived with his good mood partially restored. He was not going under.
He could make a case that there was no better or happier place to eat in the United States than the Blooberry Family Restaurant – speciality, a steak skillet breakfast. The unreflecting atheist was bound to find interest and instruction in the Mennonite tracts on a table by the entrance. 'A Happy Home', 'A Loving Marriage', and nearer his own field, 'Caring for the Earth'. By the checkout was a gift shop where in the course of eighteen months he had bought more than two dozen T-shirts for Catriona. The restaurant floor was large, the waitresses all seemed close versions, merry cousins, of Darlene. Off-duty cops ate here, and Border Patrolmen, truckers, hollow-eyed interstate travellers sitting alone, and families, of course, Hispanic, Asian, white, often in large spreads across three or four tables pushed together. But even when it was crowded, the Blooberry was dignified and subdued, as though it quietly craved a drink. The place was soothingly anonymous. Not once had he been recognised as a regular by the jolly staff. Interstate 10 was close by and turnover was high.
The food happened to suit him. As he waited to be seated he had no need to reflect on choices – he always ate the same meal here. There was no point in straying. He was led to a booth in the farthest corner. To help settle his impatience for the starter to arrive, he poured a stiff measure of gin into his empty water glass and drank it down like water, and poured another. Everything was terrible, but he was not feeling so bad. At least this Terry no longer existed. Or was that such a good thing? Melissa and Darlene, a serious mess. He could not face it, he could not bear to think about it. But it would be faced. And poor Toby. He knew he should phone him to explain why the demonstration must go ahead, but for the moment he could not be doing with another argument.
To keep his mind off his order – fifteen minutes had passed, and it usually took less than five – he looked through his emails, and here were a couple of items that made him exclaim with pleasure. The first was an informal approach from an old friend, an ex-physicist now working as a consultant in Paris. A consortium of power companies wanted Beard to bring his 'wide experience of green technologies to the task of steering public policy in the direction of carbon-free nuclear energy'. On offer was a salary well into six figures, along with an office in central London, a researcher and a car. Well, of course. The argument could be made. The CO2 levels went on rising and time was running out. There was really only one well-tested means of producing electricity on a scale to meet the needs of a growing world population, and do it soon, without adding to the problem. Many respected environmentalists had come round to this view, that nuclear was the only way out, the lesser of two evils. James Lovelock, Stewart Brand, Tim Flannery, Jared Diamond, Paul Ehrlich. Scientists and good men all. In the new scale of things, was the occasional accident, the local radiation leak, the worst outcome possible? Even without an accident, coal was daily creating a disaster, and the effects were global. Was not the 28-kilometre exclusion zone around Chernobyl now the biologically richest and most diverse region of Central Europe, with mutation rates in all species of flora and fauna barely above the norm, if at all? Besides, wasn't radiation just another name for sunlight?
The second email was an invitation to address a meeting of foreign ministers at COP 15, the grand climate-change conference in Copenhagen in December. He would be at one with its spirit and he was, he supposed, the perfect choice. He would be there. His starter arrived, orange-coloured cheese, dipped in batter, rolled in breadcrumbs and salt and deep-fried, with a creamy dip of pale green. Perfection, and in such quantity. As soon as the area around his booth was clear of waiting staff, he poured the remains of the Genever. He ate rapidly and was down to his last three lozenges, and beginning to wonder if some of them were filled with mushroom, not cheese, when the palmtop vibrated by his plate.
'Toby.'
'Listen. I've got all kinds of bad news for you, but the worst has just happened, minutes ago.'
Beard noted the strained tone of controlled hostility in his friend's voice.
'Go on.'
'Someone's taken a sledgehammer to the panels. They've gone down the rows and taken them all out. Shattered. We've lost all the catalysts. Electronics. Everything.'
There was no taking this in properly. Beard pushed his plate away. Builder's work. What would Barnard have needed to pay him? Two hundred dollars? Less?
'What else?'
'We won't be meeting again. I don't think I could bear the sight of you, Michael. But you might as well know. I'm talking to a lawyer in Oregon. I'll be taking action to protect myself against what are rightfully your debts. We, you, already owe three and a half million. Tomorrow's going to cost another half million. You can go down there yourself and explain to all the good people. Also, Braby is going to take you for everything you have and will ever have. And in the UK that dead boy's father has persuaded the authorities to move against you on criminal charges, basically theft and fraud. I hate you, Michael. You lied to me and you're a thief. But I don't want to see you in prison. So stay out of England. Go somewhere that doesn't have an extradition treaty.'
'Anything else?'
'Only this. You deserve almost everything that's coming to you. So go fuck yourself.' The line went dead.
This time he did not conceal the flask as he shook it over his glass. Two drops fell out. His waitress was standing by his elbow with a heaped plate. She was a solemn teenager with hair in a prim ponytail and on her teeth were braces studded with colourful glass beads. It cost her a lot to say what she had to.
'Sir? We have a no-alcohol poss…policy on these premises?'
'I didn't know. I'm terribly sorry.'
She took away the bowl with the three cold lozenges and set the main course down before him. Four wedges of skinless chicken breast, interleaved with three minute steaks, the whole wrapped in bacon, with a honey and cheese topping, and served with twice-roasted jacket potatoes already impregnated with butter and cream cheese.
He stared at it a good while. The destination of choice, as the cliche ran, to avoid extradition was Brazil. Was he to buy a ticket to SAo Paulo and stay with Sylvia? She was a lovely woman, and interesting too. It might not be so bad. But impossible. To soothe himself he took up his knife and fork and was immediately distracted by the sight of the lesion, the melanoma on the back of his hand. It was larger, he thought, since he last looked, and was an angry purplish-brown under the Blooberry's fluorescent lights. Was he really going to deal with this now, along with everything else? He thought it unlikely. It would take care of itself. Nor would he go to the site tomorrow to speak to the angry crowds. Nor would he be saving the world.
He set the cutlery down unused. What he wanted most was to go alone to a bar and sit at the counter with a scotch. It was a short walk down to 4th Street. But he would take the car. He was about to call his waitress over for the check when he heard a commotion on the far side of the restaurant. He turned and saw Melissa with high colour in her cheeks and wearing one of her vibrant Caribbean dresses of big green flowers against a red and black ground. She was striding past the 'Please Wait To Be Seated' sign, and right behind her, surprisingly, was Darlene, and both women looked stormy, furious and rumpled, as if they had just had a fight outside. Now they were looking for him. Ahead of them by several feet was Catriona, carrying a little girl's backpack designed to give the impression that a koala bear was clinging to her shoulders for a free ride. She saw her father before the women did and was running towards him, coming to claim him, calling out something indistinct, skipping between the crowded tables. As Beard rose to greet her, he felt in his heart an unfamiliar, swelling sensation, but he doubted as he opened his arms to her that anyone would ever believe him now if he tried to pass it off as love.
