The Book of Evidence (9 page)

T h r o u g h the f o g of my hangover it occurred to me that she w o u l d be b o u n d to k n o w something about the state of my mother's finances — whether, for instance, those ponies were making money. I g a v e her what was intended to be a boyish, encouraging smile, though I suspect it came out a broken leer, and told her to sit d o w n , that we must have a chat. T h e tea, however, was not for her, but for my mother — for Dolly, she said. Well! I thought, Dolly, no less! She m a d e o f f at once, with the saucer grasped in both hands and her agitated smile fixed on the trembling liquid in the cup.

W h e n she was gone I poked about morosely for a while, looking for the papers that had been on the table yesterday, the bills and ledgers and chequebook stubs, but found nothing. A drawer of the little bureau f r o m my father's study was locked. I considered forcing it open, but restrained myself: in my hungover m o o d I might have smashed the whole thing to bits.

I wandered o f f through the house, carrying my teacup with me. In the d r a w i n g - r o o m the carpet had been taken up, and a pane of glass in o n e of the w i n d o w s was broken, and there was glass on the floor. I noticed I had no shoes on. I opened the garden door and stepped outside in my socks. There was a smell of sun-warmed grass and a faint tang of d u n g in the rinsed, silky air. T h e black shadow of the house lay across the lawn like a fallen stage-flat. I 57

ventured a step or t w o on the yielding turf, the d e w seeping up b e t w e e n my toes. I felt like an old m a n , g o i n g along shakily with my c u p and saucer rattling and my trouscr-cuffs w e t and c r u m p l e d a r o u n d m y ankles. T h e rosebeds under the w i n d o w had not been tended for years, and a tangle of briars rioted at the sills. T h e faded roses h u n g in dusters, h e a v y as cloth. Their particular w a n shade of pink, and the chiaroscuro of the scene in general, put me in m i n d of s o m e t h i n g . I halted, f r o w n i n g . T h e pictures —

of course. I w e n t back into the d r a w i n g - r o o m . Yes, the walls w e r e e m p t y , with here and there a square patch where the wallpaper w a s not as faded as elsewhere. Surely she hadn't — ? I put my c u p d o w n carefully on the mantclpiecc, taking slow, deep breaths. T h e bitch! 1 said aloud, I bet she has! My feet had left wet, w e b b e d prints behind mc on the floorboards.

I went t h r o u g h r o o m after r o o m , scanning the walls.

T h e n I tackled the upstairs. B u t I k n e w there w o u l d be nothing. I stood on the first-floor landing, cursing under my breath. T h e r e w e r e voices nearby. I flung open a b e d r o o m d o o r . M y m o t h e r and J o a n n e w e r e sitting u p side by side in the girl's big bed. T h e y l o o k e d at me in m i l d astonishment, and for a m o m e n t I faltered as s o m e t h i n g brushed past my consciousness, a w i n g b e a t of incredulous speculation. My m o t h e r w o r e a knitted yellow bed-jacket with bobbles and tiny satin b o w s , which m a d e her l o o k like a monstrously o v e r g r o w n Easter chick. "Where, I said, with a calm that surprised m e , w h e r e are the pictures, pray? T h e r e f o l l o w e d a bit of c o m i c patter, with my m o t h e r saying
What? What?
and I shouting
The pictures!

'The pictures
,
damn it!
In the end we both had to shut up.

T h e girl had been w a t c h i n g us, turning her eyes slowly f r o m one to the other of us, like a spectator at a tennis match. N o w she put a hand o v e r her m o u t h and laughed. I 58

stared at her, and she blushed. T h e r e w a s a brief silence. I will see y o u downstairs, mother, I said, in a voice so stiff with ice it fairly creaked.

As 1 w a s g o i n g a w a y f r o m the d o o r I t h o u g h t I heard them both sniggering.

My m o t h e r arrived in the kitchen barefoot. T h e sight of her bunions and her big yellow toenails a n n o y e d m e . She had w r a p p e d herself in an impossible, shot-silk t e a - g o w n .

She had the florid look of one of Lautrec*s ruined doxies. 1

tried not to s h o w t o o m u c h of the disgust I felt. She pottered a b o u t with a s h o w of unconcern, i g n o r i n g m e .

Wrell? I said, but she only raised her e y e b r o w s blandly and said, ~We!l w h a t ? S h e w a s almost smirking. T h a t did it. I shouted, I w a v e d my fists, I s t a m p e d a b o u t stiff-legged, beside myself. "Where w e r e they? the pictures, I cried, w h a t had she d o n e with t h e m ? I
demanded
to k n o w . T h e y w e r e mine, m y inheritance, m y future and m y son's future. A n d so on. My anger, my sense of outrage, impressed m e . I w a s m o v e d . I m i g h t almost h a v e shed tears, I felt so sorry for myself. She let me go on like this for a while, standing with a hand on her hip and her head t h r o w n back, c o n t e m p l a t i n g me with sardonic calm. T h e n , w h e n 1

paused to take a breath, she started. D e m a n d , did I? — I, w h o had g o n e o f f and a b a n d o n e d m y w i d o w e d m o t h e r , w h o had skipped o f f t o A m e r i c a and married without even i n f o r m i n g her, w h o had never o n c e b r o u g h t m y child, her grandson, to see her — I, w h o for ten years h a d stravaiged the w o r l d like a tinker, never d o i n g a hand's turn of w o r k , living o f f m y dead father's f e w p o u n d s and bleeding the estate dry — w h a t right, she shrilled, w h a t right had I to d e m a n d anything here? She stopped, and waited, as if really expecting an answer. I fell back a pace. I had forgotten w h a t she is like w h e n she gets g o i n g . T h e n I gathered m y s e l f and launched at her again. She rose 59

magnificently to meet me. It was just like the old days.

H a m m e r and tongs, oh, hammer and tongs! So stirring was it that even the d o g joined in, barking and whining and dancing up and d o w n on its front paws, until my mother gave it a clout and roared at it to lie down. I called her a bitch and she called me a bastard. I said if I was a bastard what did that make her, and quick as a flash she said, If Fm a bitch what does that make
youv
you cur! Oh, it was grand, a grand match. Wc were like furious children

— no, not children, but big, maddened, primitive creatures —

mastodons, something like that — tearing and thrashing in a jungle clearing amidst a storm of whipping lianas and uprooted vegetation. T h e air throbbed between us, blood-d i m m e d and thick. There was a sense of things ranged around us, small creatures cowering in the undergrowth, watching us in a trance of terror and awe. At last, sated, wc disengaged tusks and turned aside. I nursed my pounding head in my hands. She stood at the sink, holding on to one of the taps and looking out the window at the garden, her chest heaving. We could hear ourselves breathe. T h e upstairs lavatory flushed, a muted, tentative noise, as if the girl were tactfully reminding us of her presence in the house. My mother sighed. She had sold the pictures to Binkie Behrens. 1 nodded to myself. Behrens: of course. All of them? I said. She did not answer. T i m e passed. She sighed again. Y o u got the money, she said, what there was of it — he left me only debts. Suddenly she laughed. 1 should have known better, she said, than to marry a mick. She looked at me over her shoulder and shrugged. N o w it was my turn to sigh. Dear me, I said.

O h , dear me.

Coincidences come out strangely flattened in court 60

testimony — I'm sure you have noticed this, your honour, over the years — rather like jokes that should be really funny but fail to raise a single laugh. Accounts of the most bizarre doings of the accused are listened to with perfect equanimity, yet the m o m e n t some trivial simultaneity of events is mentioned feet begin to shuffle in the gallery, and counsel clear their throats, and reporters take to gazing dreamily at the mouldings on the ceiling. These are not so much signs of incredulity, I think, as of embarrassment. It is as if someone, the hidden arranger of all this intricate, amazing affair, w h o up to n o w never put a foot wrong, has suddenly gone that bit too far, has tried to be just a little too clever, and we are all disappointed, and somewhat sad.

I am struck, for instance, by the frequent appearance which paintings make in this case. It was through art that my parents knew Helmut Behrens — well, not art, exactly, but the collecting of it. My father fancied himself a collector, did I mention that? Of course, he cared nothing for the works themselves, only for their cash value. He used his reputation as a horseman and erstwhile gay blade to insinuate himself into the houses of doddering acquaintances, on whose walls thirty or forty years before he had spotted a landscape, or a still-life, or a kippered portrait of a cross-eyed ancestor, which by n o w might be worth a b o b or two. He had an uncanny sense of timing, often getting in only a step ahead of the heirs. I imagine him, at the side of a four-poster, in candlelight, still breathless f r o m the stairs, leaning d o w n and pressing a fiver urgently into a palsied, papery hand. He accumulated a lot of trash, but there were a few pieces which I thought were not altogether bad, and probably worth something.

Most of these he had wheedled out of a distrait old lady w h o m his o w n father had courted briefly when she was a 61

girl. H e w a s h u g e l y p r o u d o f this piece o f chicanery, i m a g i n i n g , I suppose, that it put h i m on a par with the great r o b b e r barons of the past w h o m he so m u c h a d m i r e d , the G u g g e n h e i m s and Pierpont M o r g a n s and, indeed, the Behrenses. Perhaps these w e r e the very pictures that led to his m e e t i n g H e l m u t Behrens. Perhaps they tussled for t h e m o v e r the old lady's death-bed, n a r r o w i n g their eyes at each other, m o u t h s pursed in furious determination.

It w a s t h r o u g h painting also that I m e t A n n a Behrens —

or m e t her again, I should say. "We k n e w each other a little w h e n we w e r e y o u n g . I seem to r e m e m b e r once at W h i t e w a t e r being sent outside to play with her in the g r o u n d s . Play! T h a t ' s a g o o d one. E v e n in those days she had that air of detachment* of faint, r e m o t e a m u s e m e n t , which I h a v e always f o u n d unnerving. Later on, in D u b l i n , she w o u l d appear n o w and then, and glide through o u r student roisterings, poised, silent, palely h a n d s o m e . S h e w a s n i c k n a m e d the Ice Q u e e n , of course. I lost sight of her, f o r g o t a b o u t her, until o n e day in Berkeley — this is w h e r e the coincidences begin — I spotted her in a gallery on Shattuck A v e n u e . I h a d not k n o w n she w a s in A m e r i c a , yet there w a s no sense of surprise. This is o n e of the things a b o u t A n n a , she b e l o n g s exactly wherever she happens to be. 1 s t o o d in the street for a m o m e n t watching her —

a d m i r i n g her, I suppose. T h e gallery w a s a large high white r o o m w i t h a glass front. She w a s leaning against a desk w i t h a sheaf of papers in her hand, reading. She w o r e a white dress. H e r hair, bleached silver by the sun, w a s d o n e in a c o m p l i c a t e d fashion, w i t h a single heavy braid h a n g i n g d o w n at her shoulder. S h e m i g h t h a v e been a piece on s h o w , standing there so still in that tall, shadowless light behind sun-reflecting glass. I went in and s p o k e to her, a d m i r i n g again that long, slightly off-centre, 6 2

melancholy face with its close-set grey eyes and florentine mouth. I r e m e m b e r e d the t w o tiny white spots on the bridge of her nose where the skin was stretched tight over the bone. She was friendly, in her distant w a y . She watched my lips as I talked. On the walls there were t w o or three vast canvases, done in the j o k y , minimalist style of the time, hardly distinguishable in their pastel bareness f r o m the blank spaces surrounding them. I asked her if she was thinking of b u y i n g something. This amused her. I w o r k here, she said, pushing back the blonde braid f r o m her shoulder. I invited her to lunch, but she shook her head. She g a v e me her telephone n u m b e r . W h e n I stepped out into the sunlit street a j e t plane was passing l o w overhead, its engines m a k i n g the air rattle, and there was a smell of cypresses and car exhaust, and a faint w h i f f of tear-gas f r o m the direction of the campus. All this was fifteen years ago. I crumpled the file card on which she had written her phone n u m b e r , and started to throw it a w a y .

B u t I kept it*

She lived in the hills, in a m o c k - T y r o l e a n , shingled w o o d e n house which she rented f r o m a m a d w i d o w . M o r e than once on the w a y there I stood up to get o f f the bus and go h o m e , bored and half-annoyed already at the thought of Anna's amused, appraising glance, that impenetrable smile. W h e n f called her she had spoken hardly a dozen words, and twice she put a hand over the phone and talked to s o m e o n e with her in the r o o m . Y e t that m o r n i n g I had shaved with particular care, and put on a n e w shirt, and selected an impressive v o l u m e of mathematical theory to carry with m e . M o w , as the bus threaded its w a y up these n a r r o w roads, I was assailed by a sense of revulsion, I seemed to m y s e l f an obscurely shameful, l e w d object, exposed and cringing, with my palped and p o w d e r e d flesh, my baby-blue shirt, the floppy b o o k eletchcd in my hand like a parcel of meat. T h e day w a s overcast, and there w a s mist in the pines. f c l i m b e d a z i g z a g o f d a m p steps t o the d o o r , l o o k i n g a b o u t m e with an expression of bland interest, trying to a p p e a r blameless, as I a l w a y s s e e m to do w h e n I am on unfamiliar territory.