‘It’s the truth.’
‘Are you doing this to spite me, Miles?’
‘Of course not. Why do you say that?’
‘Well, that’s the way it looks to me. One minute we’re talking of rebuilding our whole relationship, and the next you’re off to Northern Ireland. It doesn’t make sense. Why you?’
‘It’s something the office has been working on for a while, a new initiative. I know more about it than most.’
‘You’ve never mentioned it before.’
‘Only a couple of days.’
‘Oh, Miles.’ Sheila came forward and hugged him. ‘Can no one go in your place? Whatever happened to delegation of responsibility? Tell them you’ve got personal problems, tell them anything.’
‘Only a few days,’ he repeated lamely. Sheila drew back from him.
‘Do you trust me for that long?’ she asked. She was thinking, I’ve used Billy Monmouth as a weapon before, I can use him as a threat this time. Miles drew her to him again.
‘I’ll always trust you, Sheila, and you have to trust me.’
‘When do you have to leave?’
‘Tomorrow.’ He felt her stiffen, but held her fast. ‘The sooner I go, the sooner I’m back.’
‘We haven’t even had a chance to talk about Billy yet,’ she said into the fabric of his shirt, her face hot against his shoulder.
‘Say it now. It doesn’t matter what you say. This is something new. But say it if you want.’
Say what? Say that Billy was nothing, merely a cipher for her frustration? Say that he had congratulated her on her dress sense, admired her hair, taken her to the theater? Say that he had been busy using her as she had been busy using him?
‘Be careful, Miles, won’t you?’
Again, Miles wondered how much she really knew of his job. Her eyes were shiny with a liquid that would recede soon. Her cheeks were burning to the touch, a fine down covering them.
‘Be careful,’ she repeated in a whisper.
Yes, he would be careful. He could promise her that.
‘Let’s go to bed,’ he said.
Eighteen
Billy Monmouth always started the day, if he was awake early enough, with a sauna, swim, and occasionally a massage at his health club. If anybody’s body needed toning, he reasoned, it was his. By arriving early, he missed the majority of the cooing, made-up middle-aged women with their flapping eyelashes and breasts. The pool was unused before breakfast, and he could swim without being embarrassed by his puffing, red-faced splashes.
Lying in the sauna, which had not yet quite revved up to its full fierceness, he let his mind drift back toward sleep. He pretended he was back in his mother’s womb, pretended the interior was blood-hot. Plunging into the icy pool outside could be the trauma of birth.
From the safety of his womb, he could think, too, of poor Miles and poor Sheila, caught in a marriage where incompatibility and love trod the same awkward line, tentatively holding hands. It had been a game to her. He realized that, of course, but had hoped that her feelings might change. Acting as a player in a new game, she had become hooked for a short time. And he too had enjoyed their secret meetings, their passing of messages, the counterfeit trips together. It had made him feel like a spy. The pity was, in the game, Miles was his enemy.
And however hard Billy tried, he could not regret having deceived his friend. He would do it again. For he had played the game a little too intensely this time.
He loved Sheila, God help him.
The door opened, letting in a cool draft of air, breaking Billy’s concentration. The betoweled man sat down, breathing heavily, then poured water onto the coals, releasing a lung-bursting gulp of heat.
‘Good morning, Andrew.’
‘Morning, Billy. How’s tricks?’
Andrew Gray scratched at his chest and his shoulders, then studied his fingernails, seeking grime. He seemed to find some, for he cleaned the offending nail on the edge of a tooth, then spat into the coals.
‘I can’t complain, Andrew. Yourself?’
‘Just fine, Billy, just fine.’ Gray was a heavy man, heavy not with any excess but with a sense of well-being. He exuded a confidence that left Billy looking shy and frail by comparison. He eased himself back onto the wooden spars of the bench, then swiveled and slowly lay back. The breaths he took were big, too, filling the cavern of his chest. Billy closed his eyes again, hoping his day was not about to be spoiled.
‘Who was that woman you were with at lunch, Andrew?’
‘You mean the day you had lunch with your friend Miles? I don’t remember her name. Miles seemed like a nice chap.’
‘Yes.’
‘So, anything happening at work?’
Billy did not reply. To talk to Gray he needed to be in a certain mood, and whatever that mood was — indifference, perhaps, or cynical torpor — Billy did not feel it this morning. His mind, after all, had been on personal things, secret feelings and emotions, things he very seldom revealed to the brutality of the outside world. But Gray had come in on a chill of wind to remind him that the world was always there, waiting, and that there were other games to be played. Lies, damned lies, deceit and the manipulation of history: that was the role of intelligence. Just for a moment, Billy felt real dirt on his skin. Gray would doubtless say that such sentiments were bad for business. Gray himself was hardened. One had only to look at that monstrous rib cage to see that the man was impervious, rock solid, unloved and unlovely. There Billy had the edge on him perhaps. Not that this would have bothered Gray.
Andrew Gray was a businessman whose business was death.
Billy had never plunged into the pool with such relief before, and he wanted to stay submerged forever, his body chilled to everlasting. Instead he showered, the water scalding him, then went to the massage room, where the Organ Grinder, his arms as thick as thighs, was reading the daily tabloid.
‘Mr. Monmouth, sir. Long time no see.’
While the Organ Grinder folded his newspaper, Billy hoisted himself onto the table.
‘Do my back, will you?’ he said.
‘My pleasure, sir.’
The Organ Grinder was already rubbing his hands with preparatory glee.
Under the slow, circulatory pressure of the handstrokes, Billy began to drift again, but by now it was too late: Gray had entered all his dreams. Each scene contained, somewhere in the shadows near the back, waiting to walk on, the malcontent figure of Andrew Gray, his chest expanding and contracting like a machine.
‘Thought I’d find you here.’
When Billy opened his eyes, Gray was sitting on the table next to him, swinging his legs, dressed only in the silky bottom half of a tracksuit. He was rubbing at his chest again, scratching occasionally, finding nothing of interest beneath his fingernails.
Billy said nothing, just tried to give himself up to the massage. The Organ Grinder, despite his name, was by far the gentlest man in the room. Billy remembered the crack Miles had given him with that exhibition catalog. Miles had not been gentle then. It had been a time bomb of a swipe, too, not hurting at the time, but requiring treatment afterward. He’d not forget it in a hurry.
‘Mind if I try that?’ asked Gray. ‘It looks interesting.’
Somewhere above Billy, roles were exchanged, a few cursory instructions given — don’t hurt, don’t prod, just go smoothly. And then the Organ Grinder was seated before him on the table, while Andrew Gray’s hands fell upon him, working their way into his flesh.
‘So, nothing’s happening at work, huh?’
‘Andrew, what do you want?’
‘Nothing much.’ Gray had started to finger-slap Billy’s shoulders. ‘It’s just...’ slappety-click... ‘well, just something I heard this morning. A phone call from a friend...’ click- slappety... ‘about your friend Miles Flint.’