High Island Blues (2 page)

‘They probably think I’m dead,’ she said, ‘so there’s no danger in using my name. Or so gaga that I won’t complain.’

‘I don’t see,’ George said, as she released the thrush and watched it fly away into the gloom, ‘what you want me to do about it. I imagine that a solicitor’s letter to the PO box the charity is using would stop it using your name again.’

‘But that wouldn’t stop them operating, George, would it? And I smell something fishy. Find out, for instance, if they’re a real charity.’

‘If they’re not,’ he said, ‘that would be a serious fraud. A matter for the police.’

‘Oh,’ she said impatiently, ‘I don’t want the police involved at this stage. For all I know the Wildlife Partnership is well meaning but disorganized. Doing good work. I just want to find out who’s behind it.’

‘There’s no hidden agenda here, is there?’ he said suddenly, suspicious, ‘something you’re not telling me?’

‘Of course not.’ Her anger seemed real enough. ‘I want to hire you George if that’s not too much trouble for you. I understand that it’s the sort of thing you do for a living.’

‘I work with my wife,’ he said. ‘I’d have to consult her.’

‘Nonsense,’ she insisted. ‘You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t intend to take the case.’

‘It’ll take time. It won’t be cheap.’

‘I can afford it,’ she said extravagantly. ‘Besides, we’re friends, aren’t we George? I’ll expect a discount.’

It was late afternoon and the drizzle had turned to heavy rain. The office window was covered in condensation and the fumes from the portable Calor gas heater caught at Jason’s throat. He was licking envelopes which made him feel sick and light-headed. The telephone rang.

‘Good afternoon,’ he said brightly. There had been training in telephone manner in the course he had taken at school, when they’d decided he wasn’t clever enough for A levels. ‘ This is the Wildlife Partnership. How may I help you?’

‘Hi, Jason!’ He recognized the voice immediately. It was his boss. Unconsciously he slicked back the hair already thick with gel. He found the American drawl unbelievably romantic. He’d always liked the pictures. ‘How’s it going, hon?’

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘ You know.’

‘A bit slow, huh?’

‘A bit,’ he admitted reluctantly. This was his first job. He wanted to make it a success and he wanted to please the caller. After all, promises had been made at his interview. ‘You could be in at the start of something big Jason. Who knows? If our charity captures the imagination of the British people we might like you to come to our Houston headquarters for training. Even to visit our refuges in Central and South America. Would you be prepared to travel to Texas, Jason?’

So he had put up with the boredom. He had filled envelopes and answered the telephone. He had written down credit card numbers and answered the punters’ queries, following the information his boss had written down for him. The questions seldom varied from the prepared script and now he had the answers off-pat: “ We were founded in response to the Rio summit meeting and have the support of all the major environmental charities. At present we have two reserves, one in Brazil and one in Costa Rica. Plans are under way to purchase a third. We employ local staff wherever possible.’

‘We’ve got a problem Jason.’ The American voice was smooth, reassuring. He waited for it to continue.

‘We’ll have to close down the office for a while. I’d like to tell you Jason, just how much we’ve valued your work over the past couple of months. We’ll be in touch when we need your help again.’

It was only after he replaced the receiver that he realized he’d been given the sack. And that he hadn’t been paid for his last week’s work.

The three of them met at a Mexican place on Highway 290, the road west out of Houston. Mick had suggested it. He was the local. Rob had arrived in town that day. He worked for a travel company and had a group of British birdwatchers in tow. He’d dumped them at the Marriott Hotel, telling them they needed to rest after the flight. One night there then on to High Island for some serious birding. Oliver was the only one on holiday and he’d come over specially for this reunion.

The restaurant was a tin shack surrounded by seedy clapboard houses. It was busy and they waited on the porch for a table, drinking frozen margaritas, eyeing each other up. This was the first time they’d been together for twenty years.

There were just the three of them. That was what they had agreed. No wives. No kids. Not this first time. The place was noisy. Inside, about a dozen parties were going on. Conversation was difficult and not only because of the noise.

‘So,’ Oliver said, ‘we made it. The great reunion. Really, I never thought we would. Not the three of us.’

He looked very cool in a white shirt and white linen trousers. Very much the Englishman on holiday. Middle age suited him though his hair was quite grey.

‘If anyone was likely to dip out I’d have thought it would be you,’ Rob said. He’d just come back from the Middle East, leading one of the first groups of tourists into Jordan from Israel. He’d picked up some bug and lost a lot of weight, so he looked thin and haunted, as brown and gaunt as a Bedouin. And that was the pattern of the relationship already established again. Rob and Oliver. Antagonistic sparring partners, opposites in every way. But closer than brothers, Mick thought, with a trace of the old envy, when the chips were down.

It was Rob who’d sat up all night with Oliver twenty years ago, when the phone call came from Julia to the motel on the way to High Island. Rob who’d been almost weeping with frustration: ‘For Christ’s sake don’t do it Ollie. Not for her. She’s not worth it.’

And when that night was over and Oliver was determined to do the honourable thing it was Rob who supported him through it. He stood as the best man in the smart little church and kissed the bride affectionately for the photos. Mick hadn’t been there – he’d already moved to Houston by then – but they’d sent him the photos. Julia wore white, a high-bodied, fall-skirted number which was fashionable at the time. It would have been appropriate even if she hadn’t been five months’ pregnant.

Rob’s thoughts must have been drifting in the same direction because he asked suddenly: ‘ How is Julia?’ It was a malicious question. He guessed that Julia was the last person Oliver wanted to talk about.

‘Oh. Busy. You know.’ Oliver stared out from the porch at a couple of kids playing in the darkening street. They had only managed one child, the important one, the one who had tied him to Julia. Sally, the love of his life, nineteen now and wanting to be an actress.

‘I suppose Julia’s working is she?’ Rob persisted mischievously, ‘now Sally’s off your hands?’

‘Not paid work,’ Oliver admitted. ‘Voluntary things. The Red Cross… WI. She’s a magistrate. And music takes up a lot of her time. She sings in rather a good choir.’

And costs me a fortune, he thought with resignation, with her car and her dresses and her position in the village to keep up.

‘I’m surprised she found time to come with you on this trip,’ Rob said. Oliver looked at him steadily, recognizing the sarcasm, failing to rise to the bait.

‘Oh, well,’ he replied. ‘ She deserves a break, you know.’

The margaritas were served in glasses like goldfish bowls. After a month of abstinence in the Middle East and a long flight, Rob felt the alcohol kick into his system. It was like being a student again, pissed for the first time. He felt suddenly emotional. He wanted to tell Oliver he was a stupid bastard. It wasn’t too late to leave Julia. He’d given her twenty years of his life and he could walk out at any time. Rob would stand by him. But he said nothing and they sat for a moment in silence.

‘Do you guys see much of each other?’ Mick asked at last. He had a peculiar hybrid accent, West Country English crossed with Texan twang, still hesitant. ‘ I mean, perhaps it’s strange to have a reunion at all if you two spend every weekend birding together. I mean, I hope you’re not here just because of me …’ His voice tailed off. Perhaps he realized that it sounded as if he were soliciting some declaration of friendship. He’d never been able to take that for granted.

‘No,’ Rob said. ‘We don’t meet. I live in Bristol now. That’s where the travel agent I work for is based. And I’m abroad a lot, leading trips.’

He looked at Oliver, challenging him to give another explanation for their failure to keep in touch, but they were called through the tannoy system to eat: ‘Brownscombe. Table for Brownscombe.’

They pushed past the crowd on the porch towards a waiter who led them into the building. Inside it was noisy and even hotter. Fans whirred on the ceiling but had little effect, except to add to the background sound. A teenage girl was celebrating her birthday. As they took their seats all the waiters and kitchen staff paraded to her table, banging pots and pans, singing and whooping.

Outside it started to rain. There was a crack of lightning. The lamps flickered then a white light shone briefly on the manic procession dancing back to the kitchen. The three men sat at a small table next to a window now streaming with rain water. They ordered fajitas because that was what Mick recommended, and while they waited they pulled tortilla chips covered in melted cheese from a pile and covered them in salsa. Rob asked for a Corona beer. Then there was a silence as they stared at each other again, saw each other for the first time as middle-aged men.

‘And business is doing well for you, Mick?’ Oliver asked politely. He might have been at one of Julia’s charity cocktail parties. ‘ I must say you seem to have settled down out here. Environmental consultancy, is that it? That seems to be taking off in the UK, too. We’re representing a firm involved in a wind farm in Northumberland. They’ve been hired to do the environmental impact assessment. Quite a lucrative contract actually.’

‘We have some business in the UK,’ Mick said. ‘But Laurie looks after that. She’s the driving force in the relationship.’ He smiled sadly. ‘I’m just her gofer.’

‘Laurie should be here.’ Rob spoke so sharply that they all looked up at him. ‘She was there, at Oaklands, when we discussed it, wasn’t she? It might even have been her idea. “A reunion in twenty years time,” we said. “ High Island in the spring with the migrants going through.”’

Mick looked uncomfortable. ‘I guess when we discussed it we never thought one of us would end up marrying her,’ he said. ‘ Not really. She’ll be at High Island tomorrow.’

I never imagined
Mick
would end up marrying Laurie, Rob thought. Mick, short and squat, dark as a tinker, and about as articulate. He pictured her the first time they’d seen her, walking down the straight road from Winnie, rice fields all around her. She was wearing a sleeveless vest, ripped jeans and scuffed boots. A stained leather cowboy hat hung by a thong round her neck and binoculars were slung over her shoulders like a cartridge case. She stuck out her thumb for a lift and the atmosphere in the clapped-out hire car changed. Each of them wanted her. This was what they’d hoped would happen all along. A real American adventure.

The fajitas came, with refried beans, more salsa and tortillas. They ate hungrily. Airline meals, Rob said, were always crap. He should know. He was an expert. He hadn’t eaten anything decent since London the day before. He never ate on planes. They all relaxed. They talked about university, the paranoid Polish landlady in their first year digs.

‘She could smell a girl in your room through two closed doors,’ Oliver said.

‘And it was always fish fingers for breakfast on Fridays,’ Mick and Rob said together.

They laughed. It was a safe subject. They said they should have done this years ago.

When the meal was finished Rob and Oliver phoned for a cab to take them to their hotel. Oliver and Julia were spending the night at the Galleria Marriott too. Mick phoned for Laurie to collect him. She was in the office, he said. Working late. It was only round the corner. He didn’t explain why he didn’t have a car, or offer the others a lift.

Laurie’s car arrived before the cab but it was still raining and she didn’t get out. They had a tantalizing glimpse of her through the steamed-up window, a profile against the street light, a brief wave. Then she drove off very fast.

Laurie drove home in silence and Mick wondered if he had done something to upset her. He found it hard, these days, to judge her mood. It was still raining and already the flash flood-water was collecting in the playing fields by the side of the road.

The evening’s reminiscences had triggered his memory of another rainy night. It was more than twenty years ago and he was driving down a Devon lane overgrown with campion and bramble and dripping cow parsley. The summer after university had been wet and business in the holiday trade had been bad. His father had taken the lack of bookings as a personal insult. He had blamed the charter operators with their cheap flights to the sun, the weather forecasters who prophesied gloom and his son for planning to run away to America.

In Wilf Brownscombe’s eyes university had been bad enough, though he had taken some pride in seeing Mick’s graduation picture in the
North Devon Journal Herald.
And why zoology, which was no use to man nor beast? Certainly not to an overworked businessman running a holiday complex. He’d been pleased when all that was over and Mick had come home to take some of the work off him. Then the boy had the nerve to say that he wanted three months off the following year to go bird watching in America. What sort of interest was that for a grown man anyway?

‘It’s before the season really starts Dad,’ Mick had said. Wilf had thought it was pathetic really. Sometimes he wished his son would lose his temper, shout, behave like a real man. ‘Easter’s late next year.’

‘Still busy though, isn’t it? Still work to be done. Still your mother and me that’ll have to do it all,’ said his father.

So that summer and autumn, Mick had worked from dawn until the early hours of the following morning. He drove through the rain between the sites accumulated by his father: the new hotel which wouldn’t have looked out of place in Torremolinos, the Marisco Tavern in the village by the sea, the caravan park on the headland. Supervising his father’s empire, proving that he wasn’t a waster, earning his three months leave without pay, his holiday with the only friends he’d made at university. He’d even given up birding that autumn. There’d been a red-eyed vireo in the churchyard at Lee. It had stayed for a week, even made the local paper. He’d not bothered going to see it.