Suckers

'Ha!' Ruth exclaimed. 'That wasn't what you said at all. You told me you'd shut it in a car door. And you told Jack you'd caught it in the spokes of someone's motorbike. You told someone else it was an accident with a blender, and only last year you were telling Maureen it was a genetic defect common to descendants of an ancient Cornish tribe. You've got a different story for every occasion, haven't you, Dora?'

I didn't much care for the idea of them all comparing notes behind my back. 'Ruth,' I said, 'have you any idea how boring it is to get asked the same bloody question over and over again? Oooh, what happened to your little finger? It drives me nuts.'

'I know it does. That's why I stopped asking about it. But I'm asking you now — what really happened?'

'You wouldn't believe me if I told you.'

'Try me. It was Duncan, wasn't it? What did he do to you?'

She'd missed the target completely.

'I know you both changed,' she persisted. 'Something happened, something really big. Duncan went to pieces, he just dropped out. And you… you went all religious.' She paused and stared at me. 'Like now. You've gone religious again, haven't you? I really like your earrings, Dora. And what about all that junk around your neck?'

I looked down and saw I'd been threading a rosary between my fingers, winding it round and round, like a set of worry beads. 'This is a fashion statement,' I said. 'I'm going through one of my neo-Gothic phases.'

'Like hell you are.'

I took a deep breath. 'All right, I admit it. Duncan and I had an affair.'.

'Oh, we all know that,' cried Ruth. 'Tell me something I don't already know.' She slid the window open, threw what was left of her cigarette into the street, and then, without asking, helped herself to another.

'Let me tell you about my grandfather,' she said, settling down again with a Once upon a time sort of voice. 'He used to be a ladies' man, he used to be very romantic. I've seen photos, he was quite good looking. And during the twenties, he fell in love with this movie actress (this was silent movies, of course). She was never very nice to him, in fact I think she was rather a bitch, but he was nuts about her, and later on, after the war, when he was on his own, he hired some detectives to track her down. He thought maybe she'd gone to America and changed her name. I think perhaps he was hoping they would get married or something, that she would finally recognize him as her soulmate and fall into his arms. Anyway, he paid for all these investigators, and do you know what they found out?'

'I have no idea.' I tried to suppress a yawn. This was turning into a mini-series.

'Nothing!' exclaimed Ruth. 'He stopped looking for her. I think he'd resigned himself to never seeing her again, he thought she was dead, but then one day — completely by accident — he ran into her. In Paris.'

'Well!' I said, glancing at my watch and wondering when-she was going to get to the point. I wanted to go back downstairs and check on Duncan. 'It's a small world.'

'But, the funny thing was,' said Ruth, 'it couldn't have been the same woman, because she looked exactly the same, even after all those years. Or perhaps it was her daughter or something, because when Grandpa introduced himself, she froze him out. Said she'd never heard of him.'

'So he made a mistake.'

Ruth shook her head. 'Grandpa didn't think so. He thought it was the same woman.'

'Yes, but that was… what? Twenty-five, thirty years later? He's an old man. The war messed up his head.'

I wondered where all this was leading. Then Ruth said something which made me sit up and pay attention. 'The thing is,' she said, 'he had film of her.'

'He did?'

'He was besotted. Just one reel — he stole it from the studio. And after the war, he tried tracking down the rest, but it was all lost or destroyed.'

'So what was the movie?' I asked, trying not to sound too interested.

'Oh, nothing famous. It wasn't even finished — she had an argument with the director. The same guy who did Pandora's Box — have you heard of that?'

I said yes, I'd heard of Pandora's Box. Quite a lot of people had.

'Well,' she said, 'he wanted her for the main role in that too, but she was still mad at him, so he hired that American actress instead, the one with the hair. Anyway, the reel Grandpa stole was from this film called Rotnacht.'

'Rotnacht,' I repeated, trying to stop my face from taking on a lean and hungry look.

Ruth was observing me closely. 'Heard of it?'

'Never.'

'Neither had Charlie. If there was anything to know, he'd be the one to know it. Anyway, Grandpa said this lookalike was hanging around in Paris with an American woman.' She looked at me as though I ought to know what she was talking about. I shrugged and shook my head.

'She was blonde,' she said, still looking at me in that strange way. 'And very beautiful. Her name was Marguerite.'

I shrugged again. 'I've no idea. You tell me.'

'I'm talking about Duncan's mother.'

This was not what I'd been expecting. 'You're kidding.'

'Marguerite Pearson Fender. That was her name. I've still got the cuttings somewhere.'

'What the hell is this? You've kept a file? On Duncan?'

'No, but he keeps cropping up in all these other dossiers. Or his parents do. Grandpa collects things. Some of it on suspected war criminals. Other stuff on… this woman.'

'I see. Your grandfather is really Simon Wiesenthal. And this woman is Martin Bormann in drag.'

'No, of course not,' Ruth said crossly.

'Anyway, I thought Duncan's father was a painter.'

Ruth squinted at me. 'Don't pretend you don't know.'

'I don't know,' I protested. 'This is all news to me, and I'm not sure what you're getting at. What about this film — does your grandfather still have it?'

Ruth said no, he didn't have it any more. 'It disintegrated. The pieces turned to dust.'

'God, I'd have given anything to see it.' The words slipped out — I hadn't intended to sound quite so bursting with curiosity.

'You do know something, don't you? Come on, Dora, tell me what happened with you and Duncan.'

'Nothing happened. Except we bust up.'

'It was this woman again, wasn't it? This Clara Weill? Grandpa used to call her Veilchen. And he used to tell me stories, like this one by Gogol, called The Viy, and he said Gogol had known her too and had written this story about her. It used to scare the shit out of me. Do you know what I'm talking about?'

'No,' I lied. The story was in my Roger Vadim's Book of Bloodsuckers. 'The Russians were never on my reading list. What's it got to do with anything?'

'You never met Duncan's parents, did you? No one did. They died when he was little. Tell me, how much do you actually know about Duncan?'

This was ridiculous. 'I know a damn sight more about him than you do,' I said, feeling a sudden surge of anxiety. I wanted to get back downstairs so I could pick up Duncan and take him as far away from that house as possible. 'I've had enough of this,' I said, getting to my feet.

'Wait, don't go,' she said, but I turned my back on her and stomped downstairs.

The room was so packed that it seemed to have a living, breathing life of its own, everyone except me part of a homogenous whole which was throbbing along to its own irresistible rhythm. All the non-smokers had suddenly produced packets of cigarettes, and the air was thick with fog and loud voices. Whenever I tried to move one way, the tightly packed mob would propel me in the opposite direction, until I grew dizzy with frustration. I searched in vain for Jack or Charlie or another familiar face, and eventually I spotted Duncan. He had scarcely moved since we'd last spoken, except that Francine had disappeared and been replaced by another woman. Duncan was squinting at her, as if that were the only way he could see one girl instead of two.