Operation Nassau (11 page)

‘I know. I’m Denise Edgecombe. I live on Great Harbour Cay. May I say,’ said Bart Edgecombe’s wife, ‘how perfectly lovely your sari is.’

I didn’t say anything at all. I was brooding over the dishonesty of Johnson Johnson. He had said nothing to me about the Begum being here. Or of having painted the Begum for that matter. I began to wonder what else he had neglected to tell me.

‘Come,’ said the Begum. ‘It is the third portrait on the left, between the Duchess and the Governor. The Press came a short while ago to photograph us all standing beside our commissions. It’s a kind of club, isn’t it; the sitters of Johnson?’

I was silent, and so was Lady Edgecombe beside me. I don’t suppose either of us had realized what a big name he was. Presumably all the paintings here had been lent back for the exhibition, and the subjects had come too, to drink champagne and be photographed and meet Johnson again. He had disappeared again in a welter of spectacle frames: Timpson equally had vanished. The Begum, exchanging smiles and waves and snatches of conversation as she swayed through the crowd, arrived with a certain iron persistence before her own portrait and tapped the silk shoulder of a long-haired young man standing before it. ‘Krishtof, I won’t have you study it. It gives too much away,’ said the Begum. ‘You have met Beltanno and Lady Edgecombe, have you not? Dear Krishtof is coming to stay as my house-guest.’

The Turkish dancer. So that was why he had flown to Nassau. He was on his way to stay with the Begum. ‘I have not only met Lady Edgecombe: I have danced with her,’ said Krishtof Bey cheerfully. The mongoloid face gave as little away as his hostess’s: the slanting eyes smiled in a manner one could describe without whimsy as evil. His hand, when he gave it to me, was long and thin and stringy with muscle. He wore a cinnamon tunic and trousers with gold Turkish slippers and the discreet bodyguard of his friends, I noticed, was between him and the crowd. I said. ‘Has Johnson painted you as well, Mr Krishtof?’

‘This he is going to do,’ said the dancer. ‘In the nude, do you think, Dr MacRannoch? Or with one small flower? The après-midi d’un faune?’

‘The Miracle in the Gorbals?’ I suggested.

He was not abashed. ‘But nothing is outwith a doctor’s experience! The naked man you have seen in his thousands.’

‘True.’ I agreed. ‘Mainly cadavers.’

‘And that is how you think of us?’ He came very close, with his almond eyes trying to mesmerize mine. ‘Cold? Unresponsive? Repellent?’

The Begum chuckled. Lady Edgecombe, beside me, was visibly out of patience. ‘On the contrary,’ I said shortly. ‘There are few things more beautiful than the blood vascular system of the grown human body. Until you have dissected two cutaneous arteriovenous anastomoses, you have no idea what elegance is.’

‘Give up, Krishtof,’ said Johnson’s deep, comfortable voice just behind us. ‘You can’t outplay Dr MacRannoch. We’ve all had a shot.’

Krishtof Bey had retreated slightly, but the almond eyes had never left mine. He was smiling. ‘Pardon, but I do not think,’ he said gently, ‘you have yet found the proper approach.’

‘Lunch,’ said Johnson hastily.

In the end the Begum took us all to lunch at the Columbus Hotel. I made a telephone-call, out of duty, to the Jackson, heard that Sir Bartholomew had been successfully treated and was resting, and after a quick comb through my hair and prod at my shirtwaister, finally joined the Begum, Lady Edgecombe, Krishtof and Johnson on the seventeenth floor.

The dining-room on the seventeenth floor of the Columbus is three-quarters glass, and its windows look down on the streaming cars of Biscayne Boulevard and the palm tops of Bayfront Park behind. Beyond that is a blue sheet of water, crossed by the ranks of long, low white bridges which lead to Dodge Island and the rest of Miami on the horizon.

The others were ready to leave the cocktail lounge when I arrived. I told them the news from the hospital while Krishtof Bey got me a tomato juice. I carried it into the dining-room, where we sat beside the scarlet swagged curtains and rhapsodized over the view.

Or rather the other four did. Sipping my tomato juice, I reflected that it resembled nothing so much as a child’s cutout cardboard picture-book, brought me once by a dim MacRannoch aunt from Australia. Before us, the swing bridge opened regularly to allow handsome white yachts to speed on their way: between its arches tunny-fishing boats were constantly sprinting, like foreshortened twin prams. Beyond the first bridge a seaplane skimmed down and landed, taxi-ing across to its berth on Dodge Island. A scarlet helicopter, buzzing past the hotel, crossed the inlet and made for the small field, airsock flying, which we had already noted on our way here. You could see the Disneyland scenic railway: the concrete complication of switch-overs which we had just finished crossing.

The sun shone out of a cloudless blue sky on all that clean, luxurious activity, and I drank my tomato juice grimly, thinking of Bart Edgecombe lying in hospital, and Pentecost with the gun in his hand, and the fire swirling up Johnson’s borrowed jacket. Krishtof Bey, as if he had read my thoughts, said gently, ‘What caused the upset to Sir Bartholomew, Dr MacRannoch? Was it ever found out?’

It was a natural sort of inquiry. That is, I suppose it was a natural sort of inquiry. I schooled my face, but I judged my pulse rate all the same to be in the region of eighty to ninety a minute. ‘I don’t suppose we shall ever know quite for certain,’ I replied. ‘But it seems fairly sure the fault was his own. Some sandwiches which had become tainted,’ I spoke quietly, out of Lady Edgecombe’s range of hearing. No one had mentioned crab sandwiches to the woman who made them.

‘Ah? Then do not let us dwell on it,’ said Krishtof Bey cheerfully. ‘Here is the menu.’

I have felt hungrier. We had palm hearts, a matter of flaccid white tubing, followed by prime rib steak and apple pie a la mode.

A la mode in the United States means ice-cream. European Plan means a bedroom reservation without meals. Modified American Plan means bed, breakfast and dinner. Full American Plan means bed, breakfast, lunch and dinner. I well remember my father’s reply when on his first hotel stay in Nassau he was asked whether he was Modified American.

‘Why so grave, Beltanno?’ the Begum suddenly said. ‘Sir Bartholomew is better; we are eating pleasant food in good company, and the whole day and night lie before you: the hospital doesn’t expect you, does it, until tomorrow? Then you are on holiday. What is your favourite pursuit?’

‘Golf,’ I said. I felt over-relaxed. Indeed, I had to exert myself to say it quite clearly. Lady Edgecombe showed, for some reason, slight apprehension. I added, ‘But surely. Begum, Mr Brady has told you of our game on Paradise Island?’

‘He told me, yes,’ said the Begum. She hesitated, as if reflecting how to phrase her next comment. ‘He feared you considered the whole encounter as a means to force an introduction to your father. I hope he was wrong,’ said the Begum calmly. ‘He is an extremely talented young man, with no need to solicit his orders. Furthermore, I gather it is not at all likely that James Ulric will see Castle Rannoch again.’

I was angry, but I took time to make myself clear. ‘It’s not impossible,’ I said. ‘If his condition should stabilize. If he avoids exerting himself with large-scale entertainments, for example.’

‘But how dull he would find it.’ the Begum said, smiling. ‘Shall I quote Rene Sand? “The place of medicine is in the stream of life, not on its banks.” And that applies not only to The MacRannoch but to his daughter. I embarrass you, Beltanno. But I wish you to be friends with my Mr Brady. Did you know he was building a bridge for me?’

‘How is it?’ said Johnson.

The Begum said, ‘He thinks he can solve this last problem. But the currents are quite impossible, you know. Everyone has tried it. But I think he will succeed.’

Krishtof Bey’s almond eyes were still watching me. He said, without moving them, ‘A bridge? But how exciting, Thelma! Where does it run from?’

‘Lady Edgecombe will have seen it,’ the Begum said, smiling at us all with that regal tilt of her head. ‘Indeed, it will be quite spectacular when it is finished. It runs from my scrap of land to the nearest large island. It joins Crab Island to Great Harbour Cay.’

‘I didn’t know,’ I said slowly, ‘that you lived so close to Great Harbour Cay?’

‘Didn’t you? But then, James Ulric hates Crab Island because it has no proper harbour,’ the Begum said. ‘I couldn’t build him a landing-strip, but at least I could give him a bridge. Do you think he will visit me now? Will you, Beltanno?’

I looked at her. ‘I’m afraid,’ I said, ‘that working hours don’t make such trips very easy. But it was kind of you to suggest it.’

‘But you get week-ends?’ Lady Edgecombe said unexpectedly. ‘Bart was saying you must get week-ends. He wanted you to fly back with us to Great Harbour Cay and stay a while. We owe a great deal to the doctor,’ she added, apologetically, to the Begum.

‘But of course. And then she can come visit us,’ said the Begum with satisfaction. ‘It is arranged.’ She signed the bill with a flourish: it went into three figures. ‘Now, shall we go? Johnson, you have to go back to your egocentric display?’

‘I’m a working man,’ said Johnson. ‘If I weren’t, you wouldn’t have that historic painting to show for it. Like Dr MacRannoch, I have to clear my desk before I come and loll on Crab Island.’

‘You’re going to stay with the Begum?’ I said. I was suspicious. Suddenly the centre of equilibrium had shifted quite away from Nassau and the United Commonwealth Hospital. Victim, suspects . . . all the protagonists in this threatening disaster seemed to be slipping away, to Crab Island. To Great Harbour Cay. Or nearly all. I thought of Sergeant Trotter.

Johnson said, ‘Krishtof Bey has asked me to paint him, and I’m tempted, but you know what a sartorial drop-out I am. Do you all dress at Gina Fratini?’

‘We don’t dress at all,’ the Begum said in her calm way.

‘Or just a little rose sometimes,’ said Krishtof Bey, slanting his faun’s eyes at me.

And I made a discovery. I knew why my enunciation was giving me trouble: why my limbs were ataxic: my responses badly impaired. Like poor Sir Bartholomew. I had been forced to ingest foreign material.

My tomato juice had been doctored with vodka. My tomato juice from Krishtof Bey.

I do not refuse alcohol because I cannot drink alcohol. I refuse because it is a frivolity I cannot afford. While therefore I will not pretend that the look I cast the dancer was friendly, I rose to my feet at the end of that meal with perfect success to say good-bye to Johnson and Krishtof Bey, who were returning to the exhibition. I then accepted the Begum’s invitation to attend to routine comfort in her suite. Lady Edgecombe came with us.

Since routine comfort with Lady Edgecombe appeared to entail stripping off the entire supra-coating of creams from her hairline to her jaw-bone and replacing it with a similar one, the Begum and I were left a long time alone in her sitting-room. Mr Frost appeared on the television. She switched him off. ‘Well, Beltanno,’ she said, sitting down in expensive folds of azure and silver. ‘So you don’t drink and you don’t smoke and you aren’t interested in people. No wonder The MacRannoch is behaving like a mad broker in a sweat-box stock-exchange. Why won’t you let him spend his money on you? Pride?’

I put my bag neatly between my feet and sat back. ‘For reasons that seem good and sufficient,’ I said.

‘And isn’t it normal in extreme cases to take a second opinion?’ the Begum said.

‘It is,’ I said. ‘But only from qualified persons.’

She smiled. I had expected her to get up and leave me. But instead she murmured, ‘But James Ulric has asked me to marry him. Didn’t you know? Repeatedly.’

That was all I needed. A bloody mother as well. I beg your pardon. The vodka. I said, ‘And you’ve refused him?’

‘I have refused to consider it,’ said the Begum, ‘until I met you first.

I sat and stared at her. Because the implications of that struck me for the very first time. My father could have no further children. The Begum, in any case, was well past the reproductive years and had no children from her previous marriage.

And that meant that the combined fortunes of the Begum and my father would descend eventually to me.

No wonder she wanted to meet me. To influence me. To present me. To marry me off to some effing man.

I beg your pardon.

I said, ‘It may help you to make up your mind if I say I have no intention of marrying.’

‘I know.” said the Begum thoughtfully. ‘You’re scared of not being top dog.’

‘I am unwilling,’ I said calmly, ‘to spend the rest of my life tied to inferior company.’

‘Does it follow?’ said the Begum reflectively. ‘I wouldn’t say that the company of poor dear James is all that superior. And what about Johnson?’

One of the anterolateral muscles of my abdomen, whose name I could not quite place at that moment, produced a soft thud. I said, ‘I am talking of viable probabilities.’

‘I’m talking of liking people,’ said the Begum. ‘Ah, here is Lady Edgecombe. How charming. Beltanno, all this elegance must not be wasted. Come. Get ready quickly, and leave that ridiculous bag on the floor. Lady Edgecombe and I are going to show you Miami.’

The first language in Miami is of course Spanish: the shop girls discuss you in it, the cinemas advertise their programmes Hoy and the drug stores sell Perros Calientes as well as the Jumbo Dog Sauerkrauts of everyday life.

The admonitions of the freeway from the airport are, however, wholly American: Keep off the Median. Walk. Don’t Walk. Have a Nice Day.

To be wished a nice day by a bored distributive trades employee is an American compulsion which never fails to incense me, as do the personal good wishes of junior disc-jockeys relayed over the radio at home. The ultimate end of mankind is not necessarily to have itself a good day. I was not having a good day.

I was being dragged by the Begum Akbar and Lady Edgecombe through the nerve-centre of the Sunshine State. The impossibility of guessing from one moment to the next what would catch the Begum’s fancy both heightened my blood pressure and confused my recollection of the hours which were to follow.