The Book of Evidence (19 page)

g a v e me a little lift, it w a s so splendidly irresponsible. It m a d e the w h o l e thing s e e m no m o r e than a spot of high j i n k s , a j a p e that h a d g o n e w r o n g . I chuckled m o u r n f u l l y into my glass. Y o u l o o k like shit, W'ally said c o m p l a c e n t l v . I asked for another s i n , a d o u b l e this v o i c e a e a i n said: D o n ' t ,

T h e b o y w i t h the curls c a m e b a c k , n o w w e a r i n g tight j e a n s and a shiny tight green shirt. He w a s called S o n n y .

W a l l y left h i m in c h a r g e of the bar a n d w a d d l e d o f f to his quarters, his d r e s s i n g - g o w n b i l l o w i n g behind h i m . S o n n y i g e n e r o u s m e a s u r e of c r e m e de m e n t h e into a and filled it up w i t h ice cubes, then perched h i m s e l f on the stool, s q u i r m i n g his n a r r o w little nates, and e x a m i n e d m e w i t h o u t m u c h enthusiasm. Y o u > r e n e w , h e said, m a k i n g it s o u n d like an accusation. No I ' m not, I said, y o u are, a n d I s m i r k e d , pleased w i t h myself. He m a d e a w i d e - e y e d face. W e l l e x c u s e m e , he said, I ' m sure. W a l l y c a m e b a c k , dressed and c o i f f e d a n d reeking of p o m a d e . I had another d o u b l e . My face w a s g r o w i n g taut, it felt like a m u d m a s k . I had reached that stage of inebriation w h e r e e v e r y t h i n g w a s settling into another version of reality. It s e e m e d n o t drunkenness, but a f o r m of e n l i g h t e n m e n t , a l m o s t a s o b e r i n g - u p . A c r o w d of theatre p e o p l e c a m e in, p r a n c i n g and s q u a w k i n g . T h e y l o o k e d a t m y a p p e a r a n c e and then at each other, b r i m m i n g w i t h m e r r i m e n t . T a l k
132.

about r o u g h trade, one said, and S o n n y tittered. A n d I thought, that's what I'll do, F11 get one of them to take me h o m e and hide me, L a d y M a c b e t h there with the mascara and the blood-red nails, or that laughing fellow in the harlequin shirt — w h y not? Yes, that's what I should dos I should live henceforth a m o n g actors, practise a m o n g them, study their craft, the g r a n d gesture and the fine nuance.

Perhaps in time I w o u l d learn to play my part sufficiently well, with e n o u g h conviction, to take my place a m o n g the others, the naturals, those people on the bus, and all the rest of them.

It was only when Charlie French c a m e in that 1 realised it was for him I had been waiting. G o o d old Charlie. My heart flooded with fondness, I felt like embracing him, He was in his chalk stripes, carrying a battered, important-looking briefcase. A l t h o u g h he had seen me three days a g o he tried at first not to k n o w me. Or perhaps he really didn^t recognise me, in my dishevelled, wild-eyed state. He said he had thought I was g o i n g d o w n to C o o l g r a n g e . I said I had been there, and he asked after my mother. I told h i m about her stroke. I laid it on a bit, I think — I m a y even have shed a tear. He n o d d e d , looking past my left ear and j i n g l i n g the coins in his trouser pocket. T h e r e was a pause, during which I snuffled and sighed. So, he said brightly, y o u ' r e o f f on y o u r travels again, are y o u ? 1

shrugged. His car's b r o k e d o w n , isn't it, Wally said, and expelled an unpleasant little chuckle. Charlie assumed a sympathetic f r o w n . Is that right? he said slowly, with a d r e a m y lack of emphasis. T h e c r o w d of actors behind us suddenly shrieked, so piercingly that glasses chimed, but he m i g h t not have heard them, he did not even blink. He had perfected a pose for places and occasions such as this, by which he m a n a g e d to be at once here and not here. He stood very straight, his black b r o g u e s planted firmly 133
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together and his briefcase leaning against his leg, with one fist on the bar — oh, I can see him! — and the other hand holding his whiskey glass suspended halfway to his lips, just as if he had stumbled in here by mistake and was too much the gentleman to cut and run before partaking of a snifter and exchanging a few civilities with the frantic denizens of the place. He could maintain this air of being just about to leave throughout a whole night's drinking.

Oh yes, Charlie could act them all into a cocked hat.

T h e m o r e I drank the fonder I became of him, especially as he kept paying for gins as fast as I could drink them. But it was not just that. I was — I am — genuinely fond of him, I think I have said so already. D i d I mention that he got me my j o b at the Institute? We had kept in touch during my years in college — or at least
he
had kept in touch with
me.

He liked to think of himself as the wise old family friend watching over with an avuncular eye the brilliant only son of the house. Fie took me out for treats. There were teas at the Hibernian, the o d d jaunt to the Curragh, the dinner at J a m m c t ' s every year on my birthday. T h e y never quite worked, these occasions, they smacked too much of contrivance. I was always afraid that someone w o u l d see mc with him, and while I squirmed and scowled he w o u l d sink into a state of restless melancholy. W h e n we were iseady to part there w o u l d be a sudden burst of hearty chatter which was nothing but relief badly disguised, then we w o u l d each turn and slink away guiltily. Yet he was not deterred, and the day after my return with Daphne f r o m America he took me for a drink in the Shelbourne and suggested that, as he put it, I might like to give the chaps at the Institute a hand. I was still feeling g r o g g y — we had m a d e a hideous winter crossing, on what was hardly m o r e than a tramp steamer — and he was so diffident, and e m p l o y e d such elaborate depreciations, that it was a while 1 34
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before I realised he was offering me a j o b . T h e work, he assured me hurriedly, would be right up my street — hardly work at all, and to such as I, he fancied, more a f o r m . o f play — the money was decent, the prospects were limitless.

I knew at once, of course, from his suppliant, d o g g y manner, that all this was at my mother's prompting. Well, he said, showing his big yellow teeth in a strained smile, what do you think? First 1 was annoyed, then amused. 1

thought: why not?

If the court pleases, I shall skim lightly over this period of my life. It is a time that is still a source of vague unease in my mind, I cannot say why, exactly. I have the feeling of having done something ridiculous by taking that j o b . It was unworthy of me, of course, of my talent, but that is not the whole source of my sense of humiliation. Perhaps that was the moment in my life at which — but what am I saying, there are no moments, Fve said that already. There is just the ceaseless, slow, demented drift of things. If I had any lingering doubts of that the Institute extinguished them finally. It was housed in a great grey stone building from the last century which always reminded me, with its sheer flanks, its buttresses and curlicues and blackened smokestacks, of a grand, antiquated ocean liner. No one knew what exactly it was we were expected to achieve.

We did statistical surveys, and produced thick reports bristling with graphs and flow-charts and complex appendices, which the government received with grave words of praise and then promptly • forgot about. T h e director was a large, frantic man w h o sucked fiercely on an enormous black pipe and had a tic in one eye and tufts of hair sprouting f r o m his ears. He plunged about the place, always on his way elsewhere. All queries and requests be greeted with a harsh, d o o m e d laugh. T r y that on the Minister! he would cry over his shoulder as he strode off, 135
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e m i t t i n g thick gusts of s m o k e and sparks in his w a k e .

Inevitably there w a s a h i g h incidence of looniness a m o n g the s t a f f F i n d i n g themselves w i t h n o fixed duties, p e o p l e e m b a r k e d furtively o n projects o f their o w n . T h e r e w a s a n e c o n o m i s t , a tall, e m a c i a t e d person w i t h a greenish face a n d u n r u l y hair, w h o w a s devising a f o o l p r o o f system for betting o n the horses. H e o f f e r e d o n e d a y t o let m e i n o n it, clutching my wrist in a t r e m b l i n g c l a w and hissing urgently into my ear, b u t then s o m e t h i n g h a p p e n e d , I d o n ' t k n o w w h a t , he g r e w suspicious, a n d in the end w o u l d n o t speak t o m e , and a v o i d e d m e i n the corridors.

T h i s w a s a w k w a r d , f o r h e w a s o n e o f a select b a n d o f savants w i t h w h o m I h a d to treat in order to gain access to the c o m p u t e r . T h i s m a c h i n e w a s at the centre of all o u r activities. T i m e on it w a s strictly rationed, and to get an uninterrupted h o u r at it w a s a rare privilege. It ran all d a y and t h r o u g h the night, w h i r r i n g and crunching in its vast white r o o m in the basement. At night it w a s tended by a mysterious and sinister trio, a w a r criminal, I think, and t w o strange b o y s , o n e w i t h a d a m a g e d face. T h r e e years I spent there. I w a s not violently u n h a p p y . I j u s t felt, and feel, as I say, a little ridiculous, a little embarrassed. A n d 1

never quite f o r g a v e C h a r l i e French.

I t w a s late w h e n w e left the p u b . T h e night w a s m a d e o f glass. I w a s v e r y d r u n k . C h a r l i e helped me along. He w a s w o r r y i n g a b o u t his briefcase, and clutched it tightly under his a r m . E v e r y f e w yards 1 h a d to stop and tell h i m h o w g o o d he was. N o , I said, h o l d i n g up a hand c o m m a n d i n g l y , no, I w a n t to say it, y o u ' r e a g o o d m a n , Charles, a g o o d m a n . I w e p t copiously, of course, and retched drily a f e w times. It w a s all a sort of glorious, grief-stricken, s t a g g e r i n g rapture. I r e m e m b e r e d that 1 3 6
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Charlie lived with his mother, and wept for that-, too. B u t h o w is she, I shouted sorrowfully, tell me, Charlie, h o w is she, that sainted w o m a n ? He w o u l d not answer, pretended not to hear, but I kept at it and at last he shook his head irritably and said, She's dead! I tried to embrace him, but he walked a w a y f r o m me. We came upon a hole in the street with a cordon of red and white plastic ribbon around it. T h e ribbon shivered and clicked in the breeze. It5s where the b o m b in the car went o f f yesterday, Charlie said. Yesterday! I laughed and laughed, and knelt on the road at the edge of the hole, laughing, with my face in my hands. Yesterday, the last day of the old world. Wait, Charlie said, I'll get a taxi. He went off, and I knelt there, rocking back and forth and crooning softly, as if I were a child I was holding in my arms. I was tired. It had been a long day. I had c o m e far.

I W O K E I N S F L I N T E M E O sunlight with a shriek fading in m y ears. B i g s a g g i n g bed, b r o w n walls, a smell of d a m p . I thought I must be at C o o l g r a n g e , in my parents' r o o m .

For a m o m e n t I lay without m o v i n g , staring at sliding waterlights on the ceiling. T h e n I r e m e m b e r e d , and I shut my eyes tight and hid my head in my arms. T h e darkness d r u m m e d . I g o t up and d r a g g e d m y s e l f to the w i n d o w , and stood a m a z e d at the blue innocence of sea and sky. Far out in the bay white sailboats were tacking into the wind.

B e l o w the w i n d o w was a little stone harbour, and b e y o n d that the curve of the coast road. An e n o r m o u s seagull appeared and flung itself on flailing pinions at the glass, shrieking. T h e y must think y o u are M a m m y , Charlie said behind m e . He was standing in the d o o r w a y . He w o r e a soiled apron, and held a frying-pan in his hand. T h e gulls, he said, she used to feed them. At his back a white, impenetrable glare. This was the w o r l d I must live in f r o m n o w on., in this searing, inescapable light. I looked at m y s e l f and f o u n d I w a s naked.

I sat in the vast kitchen, under a vast, g r i m y w i n d o w , and 138

watched Charlie making breakfast in a cloud of fat-smoke.

He did not look too g o o d in daylight, he was hollow and grey, with flakes of dried shaving soap on his j a w and bruised bags under his phlegm-coloured eyes. Besides the apron he w o r e a woollen cardigan over a soiled string vest, and sagging flannel trousers. Used to wait till I was gone, he said, then throw the food out the window. He shook his head and laughed. A terrible w o m a n , he said, terrible.

He brought a plate of rashers and fried bread and a s w i m m i n g e g g and set it d o w n in front of me. There, he said, only thing for a sore head. I looked up at him quickly.
A sore head?
Had I blurted something out to him last night, some drunken confession? B u t no, Charlie would not m a k e that kind of joke. He went back to the stove and lit a cigarette, fumbling with the matches.

Look, Charlie, I said, I may as well tell you, F v e got into a bit of a scrape.

I thought at first he had not heard me. He went slack, and a dreamy vacancy came over him, his mouth open and drooping a little on one side and his eyebrows mildly lifted. Then I realised that he was being tactful. Well, if he didn't want to know, that was all right. But I wish to have it in the record, m'lud, that I would have told him, if he had been prepared to listen. As it was I merely let a silence pass, and then asked if I might b o r r o w a razor, and perhaps a shirt and tie. Of course, he said, of course, but he would not look me in the eye. In fact, he had not looked at me at all since I got up, but edged around me with averted gaze, busying himself with the teapot and the pan, as if afraid that if he paused some awful awkward thing would arise which he would not k n o w how to deal with. He suspected something, I suppose. He was no fool. (Or not a great fool, anyway.) B u t I think too it was simply that he did not quite k n o w h o w to accommodate my presence. He 139
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fidgeted* m o v i n g things about* p u t t i n g things a w a y in d r a w e r s a n d c u p b o a r d s a n d then taking t h e m o u t again, m u r m u r i n g t o h i m s e l f distractedly. P e o p l e did not c o m e o f t e n to this house* S o m e of the w e e p y r e g a r d I had felt for h i m last n i g h t returned. He s e e m e d a l m o s t maternal, in his a p r o n a n d his o l d felt slippers. He w o u l d take care of m e . I g u l p e d m y tea a n d g l o o m e d a t m y u n t o u c h e d fry c o n g e a l i n g on its plate. A c a r - h o m t o o t e d outside, and C h a r l i e w i t h a n e x c l a m a t i o n w h i p p e d o f f his a p r o n and hurried o u t of the kitchen. I listened to h i m blundering a b o u t the house. In a surprisingly short t i m e he appeared again, in his suit, w i t h his briefcase u n d e r his a r m , and s p o r t i n g a raffish little hat that m a d e h i m l o o k like a harassed b o o k i e . W h e r e are y o u based, he said, f r o w n i n g at a spot beside my left shoulder, C o o l g r a n g e , or — ? 1 said nothings o n l y l o o k e d at h i m appealingly, and he said, A h , and n o d d e d s l o w l y , and s l o w l y w i t h d r e w . S u d d e n l y , t h o u g h * 1 did n o t w a n t Iiim to go — alone, I 'would be alone! — and I rushed after h i m a n d m a d e h i m c o m e b a c k and tell me h o w the stove w o r k e d , and w h e r e to find a k e y , and w h a t t o say i f the m i l k m a n called. H e w a s puzzled by my v e h e m e n c e , 1 c o u l d see, and faintly a l a r m e d . 1 followed h i m into the hall, and w a s still talking to h i m as lie b a c k e d o u t the f r o n t - d o o r , n o d d i n g at me warily, with a f i x e d smile, as if 1 w e r e — ha! I w a s g o i n g to say, a d a n g e r o u s criminal. I s c a m p e r e d up the stairs to the b e d r o o m , a n d w a t c h e d as he c a m e o u t on the f o o t p a t h below^ a clowmsfaly foreshortened f i g u r e in his hat and his b a g g y suit. A large black car w a s w a i t i n g at the kerb, its t w i n exhaust pipes discreetly p u f f i n g a pale-blue mist. T h e driver^ a b u r l y , dark-suited f e l l o w w i t h no neck, h o p p e d o u t smartly a n d held o p e n the rear d o o r . Charlie l o o k e d up at the w i n d o w w h e r e I s t o o d , a n d the driver f o l l o w e d his glance. I s a w m y s e l f as they w o u l d see m e , a blurred 140
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