Mortal Love (15 page)

She broke off what remained of the stem and tucked the flower into his lapel. “There: perfect. Come on, now, or we'll be late.”

They went back outside. Once more he folded himself into the Mini, and it began the circuit around Highbury Fields. The April sky had deepened to violet. On the grass, members of a local rugby team were playing, their briefcases and backpacks scattered beneath a plane tree; lovers lay with arms entwined, oblivious of dogs pulling at leashes and the cries of children from the playground. To Daniel it was almost unbearably beautiful—glimpsed through a small, grimy windscreen and immediately consigned to that pastel-tinted province of memory it shared with its fellow prisoners of Time: the sound of an unseen bell chiming one Christmas Eve, he and Nick Hayward drunk and laughing themselves speechless on the Mall, the full moon gazing upon Middlesex Beach like a placid eye.

And now this, the car wheeling into Holloway Road with the April night just starting to bloom all around them. He sighed luxuriously, his hangover forgotten, and shoved his hands into the pockets of his dress jacket. His fingers closed around something familiar: another acorn.

He glanced furtively at Larkin, let the acorn slip back into the pocket's folds.

“So. Where, exactly, is whatever it is we're going to be late for?” he said.

“In Chelsea—Cheyne Walk. Right next to where Rossetti lived. It's a going-away party for Russell Learmont.”

“Is he an artist?”

“No. He's the CEO of Winsoame Pharmaceuticals.”

“Winsoame? As in Eli Lilly, Pfizer, and Winsoame? The people who invented Exultan?”

“That's right. Russell has this absolutely brilliant place, you'll see. He's retiring, sailing his yacht off to America in a few days. He's buying an island in New England. He's an interesting person.”

“I'd think retiring with a trillion dollars from the world's biggest pharmaceutical concern would make him extremely interesting.”

“No, really—he collects art brut. What do Americans call it—outsider art?”

“I gave up on art brut after seeing that cow cut in half at the Tate.”

“That wasn't art brut.”

“I hope not. My butcher can do better installations than that.”

“Well, we don't have to stay long, just say hello, good-bye, and bon voyage. Russell has something of mine that I must get back before he leaves.”

“Well, I just hope they don't throw me out into the street.”

Daniel glanced at the rearview mirror. His gray eyes were slightly bloodshot, but the pale stubble on his face gave it more definition, so that he seemed at once younger and more world-weary, worthy of his glamorously shabby dress coat, his sunflower, and the woman beside him.

“This is all so strange,” he said. “I mean, meeting you and just taking off like this. Getting drunk in the middle of the day. Wearing someone else's clothes. It's not what I usually do. With women, I mean.”

“What do you usually do with them?”

“Not enough,” he said, and laughed. “But really, don't you think it's funny—sort of a weird coincidence?”

“I don't believe in coincidence. Or maybe I define coincidence differently than you do.”

“How do
you
define it?”

“By what the word actually means. To ‘coincide' means for one thing to occupy the exact same place and time as another. There's a Latin term—
incidere
—to fall into or come into something unexpectedly. Oh, damn, I missed the turn.”

It was another half hour before they found a place to park on the busy street alongside the Thames Embankment and made their way to Cheyne Walk. Neat redbrick houses and terraces that had once been bohemian digs now were the trophy homes of Sainsbury heirs and Sloane Rangers.

“That's Rossetti's house,” said Larkin, pointing at an expansive building with bright white trim and tidy topiaries. “Back in the seventies John Paul Getty lived there and trashed it, but it's been fixed up quite nicely now. You're still not allowed to have peacocks, though.”

“Peacocks?”

“Rossetti's animals made such a mess and so much noise that the landlord put a clause in the deed that no one was allowed to keep peacocks here, in perpetuity.”

Daniel smiled, but Larkin seemed subdued.

“You look pale,” he said. “You sure you want to do this?”

She looked up at him. The April twilight gave her eyes a strange cast, the way a violet's tracery of veins shows both green and purple.

“I'm fine.” She lay her hand upon his cheek. “And I'll be better later. I promise.”

They reached Learmont's house. The plangent strains of a string quartet echoed from windows open to the street. Larkin rapped upon the door, and it swung open. A man in black tie looked at them courteously but without warmth until she flashed a large black envelope.

“Please come in,” he said, and beckoned them inside.

It was a vast, sparely furnished house—high walls painted white, arched doorways opening onto long bright passages that reminded Daniel of hospital corridors. Everywhere were paintings, of every imaginable size and shape, their frames made of gilt and plain wood, scrap metal and Popsicle sticks and aluminum foil. There were peculiar sculptures—huge cocoonlike masses of wool and twine, tree trunks carved in shapes that were not quite human—vitrines and Plexiglas cases displaying homemade books and tapestries composed of fur and wax and human hair. Daniel tried to keep up with Larkin as she strode ahead of him through a crowd of people evenly divided between those dressed in evening clothes and those who seemed to have wandered in from one of the bondage shops in Camden Town.

“Larkin!” Daniel called as she disappeared down a hallway. “Larkin, wait—”

Too late. Daniel looked around at the press of faces burnished by wealth and booze: a woman in a flamingo-pink feather sheath, another wearing black trousers and halter top and, God help her, a gold monocle. Two middle-aged men whom Daniel recognized from last week's
News of the World;
several buff and silent fellows in black tie and cordless headsets who must be Learmont's security staff.

And, preening by itself in the middle of the wide formal center stairway, a live peacock, its tail extended to form a rainbow-eyed fan nearly four feet across.

“Jesus Christ,” said Daniel, and hurried to find the bar.

There was no
absinthe being served at the party, so Daniel contented himself with two glasses of peaty-tasting scotch poured by a man who looked like his last job had involved standing very still at Madame Tussaud's. Daniel accepted a third glass, then wandered around vainly searching for Larkin. There was the usual blue scrawl of cigarette smoke, the usual desultory conversation elevated, for American ears at least, by elongated Oxbridge delivery.

“. . . got another seven in stock from the Singapore venture—”

“... a
boy.
Told him he'd be better off with a Cairn terrier.”

“. . . no option. Then next you know,
pfff!
she's lying on the floor, and I still have the wire in my hand. . . .”

“. . . tell them I don't give a fuck if it is breach of contract. Make more money selling my stuff on the Internet now anyway.”

Daniel felt a shiver of apprehension. He turned to see Nick Hayward pointing his pocketknife at a very large, well-dressed man. When the man noticed Daniel watching, he grabbed him by the arm and pulled him over.

“You two must meet,” he said. “Please excuse me, but there's my mother now,” he added, and fled.

“Hallo, Daniel.” Nick turned and prodded him with the knife, which had a bit of sausage stuck to its tip. He was dressed as usual in black jeans and a stained khaki anorak, heavy gold hoops in his ears. “Hungry? I brought this, food here's terrible. Look at all these walking skeletons. Fucking charnel house of Prada.”

“What are you doing here?” demanded Daniel.

“What am I doing here?
I
was invited.” Nick surveyed Daniel's jacket and sunflower curiously. “Whatever are you wearing? You look like Mott the Hoople.”

“Shut up. Have you seen Larkin?”

“Larkin.” Nick's expression clouded. He ate the nub end of sausage, closed the knife and slid it into a pocket, then took Daniel by the elbow and pulled him to an empty corner. “Larkin is precisely why I'm here. Look, Danny, I know you have limited patience with me these days—”

“I have
none,”
Daniel snapped. “Just tell me if you've seen her, since I don't know a single goddamn person here—”

“You wound me, Danny.”

“—and I feel a little out of place.”

“Don't worry, you're with me. Come on.”

Nick spun and began walking quickly up the broad stairway. As he passed the peacock, his foot shot out to kick it. In a frenzy of shrieks and iridescent feathers, the bird sailed off above the crowd.

“I've always wanted to do that,” he said as Daniel ran up behind him.

Daniel glanced back at the bird sympathetically. “Who is this Learmont guy anyway?”

“Russell Learmont? Why, he's the man who sold the world.” Nick stooped to grab a stray peacock feather and stuck it into his braid. “I suppose the short answer would be that he's a collector.”

“Of outsider art.”

“Of whatever he fucking wants.”

“What's the long answer?”

“That's what I'm taking you to find out, Danny.”

They reached the second floor. There were more paintings here, but no people. Nick hurried across the landing into a large living room, empty save for several wing chairs arranged before a cold fireplace and a dog dozing on the Ashtaban carpet. “Art collector, that's what he'd tell you. He's a dangerous brute.”

“Meaning he's a good CEO.” Daniel reached down to stroke the dog's ears. It was a Border collie, its muzzle gray with age, its piebald coat black and white; when it looked up, he was startled by its eyes, one champagne gold, the other a blanched blue that was almost white. “Nice doggy. Nice weird doggy.”

He glanced up to see Nick pulling first one and then a second pocket door from the wall, sealing off the room. “Should you be doing that?” said Daniel. “This isn't your house.”

“I'll do whatever I fucking please. Piss on the carpet if I choose. And no, I don't mean he's a good CEO.” Nick flicked a disdainful finger at Daniel's dress jacket. “I mean that had better be a lead-lined bit of business you're wearing, if you mean to keep your balls intact.”

“You're a lunatic, Nick. I'm out of here.”

“You can't do that. You've only just arrived,” someone said in a hoarse voice. A slim figure was extracting itself from one of the wing chairs, a boy wearing a neo-retro polyester zoot suit a shade darker than his blond hair.

“We haven't met.” The figure extended a hand with very dirty fingernails. “Although I see you're wearing my token. Juda Trent.”

It was not a boy but a young woman. The down on her upper lip was mostly a trick of the light: when she tilted her head back, it faded into her skin. The blunt fingernails weren't dirty either, but painted metallic blue. She had an open, freckled face and wore no makeup; the roots of her bright hair were dark brown, and her eyes were icy blue.

“Juda,” repeated Daniel, dazed. “I'm Daniel Rowlands.”

Juda smiled, and once more Daniel was staring at a man maybe ten years younger than himself, but then she leaned forward to take his hand, and he caught a flash of small freckled breasts beneath her V-neck sweater.

“
Dr.
Juda Trent,” said Nick. “Juda is a Jungian psychiatrist, as well as the World's Foremost Authority on ancient pagan survivals in the modern world, north of Finsbury Park.”

“Please. Call me Juda.” She withdrew her hand, uptilted eyes mocking. “I saw you this afternoon by the café. And now we meet. What a coincidence.”

“Yes.” Daniel glanced helplessly at Nick, who had settled into a chair and was fanning himself with the peacock feather. “You gave me the sunflower.”

“I did.” Juda reached to adjust it in his lapel. “Now, in the language of flowers, a sunflower means ‘adoration,' or alternately ‘love above one's station.' It looks quite nice on you.”

“You're a psychiatrist?”

“I am.” Juda picked up a leather briefcase. “Although I don't practice much analysis anymore. Mostly research now,” and she handed him a business card.

“Psychopomp?” Daniel laughed and put the card into his pocket.

“My clinical work involved people with terminal diseases—cancer mostly, and AIDS. This was before the drug cocktails became available.”

“Sounds challenging.”

“It was.” Juda sank into a chair and lit a cigarette. The Border collie stood and pattered over to Daniel's feet, gave a loud sigh, and sat. “Exhausting. But extremely interesting. You spend a lot of time, going back and forth with dying people.”

Daniel thought that such journeys were usually one way but said nothing. Juda Trent continued to stare at him, smoking.

Finally she spoke. “Anyhow, good to meet you, Daniel. Your friend's told me a bit about you.” She glanced at Nick, then gestured at the door. “That locked?”

Nick nodded. “Yeah. And Fancy there will keep an ear out. Won't you, boy?” he added, clucking softly at the dog. The Border collie looked up, feathered tail giving a halfhearted wave, then laid its grizzled muzzle on Daniel's foot.

“Locked?” Daniel looked around. “What . . . ?”

Without warning, Juda jumped from her seat and strode over to him. She took his chin in her hand and tilted his head back, staring intently at his face. Daniel was too stunned to speak. After a moment she dropped her hand and turned to Nick.