Armadillo

Chapter 19

Lorimer stood shivering on the corner of Pall Mall and St James’s, watching his breath cloud and hang almost motionless in front of him beneath the ochre glow of the streetlamps, as if it were reluctant to be dispersed and wanted to be breathed back into his warm lungs again. It had every sign of being another hard frost tonight but at least he did not have to worry about its effect on the Toyota’s bodywork. Small mercies, duly thankful. He blew into his cupped hands and stamped his feet. It was ten past six – he would wait another five minutes and then he’d –
Across the street a large car stopped and a man in a dark blue overcoat climbed out and disappeared up some steps into a building.
‘Mr Black?’
Lorimer turned to confront a diminutive, portly man, smiling warmly. He seemed top-heavy, all chest and gut and gave the impression of teetering forward, on the edge of losing his balance. He had thick sandy hair combed back in a rock ‘n’ roller’s tidy quiff. He must have been in his sixties, his face worn and weather-beaten despite his apple cheeks and wobbly jowls. A green loden-coat and brown trilby he’d raised from his head in greeting sat oddly on him, as if he’d borrowed them from some other man.
‘Freeze your b-b-balls off,’ the little man said, jocularly replacing his hat and extending his hand. ‘Dirk van Meer.’
‘How do you do?’ Lorimer said, very surprised. Oddly enough, the accent sounded more Irish than South African.
‘I wanted to meet you myself,’ he said, ‘in order to underline the importance of what I’m going to say. Didn’t want an intermediary, you see.’
‘Oh?’
‘My associates have already spoken to your friend Mr Wiles and he’s been most co-operative.’
‘As I keep saying to people: I simply don’t understand what’s going on.’
‘Ah, but you’re an intelligent young fellow and soon you’ll be able to add up two and two. I wanted to talk to you before you figured out it was four.’
‘Look, Wiles couldn’t tell me anything.’
‘The trouble is, Mr Black, you know more than you think. Sheer bad luck.’
Sheer Achimota, Lorimer thought, for some reason. Powerful ju-ju.
‘It’s terribly simple,’ van Meer went on, genially. All I require of you is your silence and your promise to remain silent.’
‘You have my promise,’ Lorimer said at once. ‘Unequivocally’ He would promise this jolly, smiling gnome anything. Somehow the complete absence of threat in his voice and manner was terrifying, spoke of awesome power.
‘Good,’ van Meer said, taking his arm and turning him so that he faced up St James’s. He pointed at a building. ‘You know that club there? Yes, there. Go inside and ask for Sir Simon Sherriffmuir. He’ll have some interesting news for you.’ He gave Lorimer a little pat on the shoulder. ‘I’m so glad we understand each other. Mum’s the word.’ He theatrically put his finger to his lips, and backed away, adding with no trace of threat in his voice at all, ‘I will hold you to your unequivocal promise, Mr Black. Be assured.’
Lorimer found this remark more distressing and gut-churning than a cut-throat razor waved in his face and felt his mouth dry and his gorge contract. Van Meer gave a wheezy chortle, a wave and wandered off along Pall Mall.
The uniformed porter took Lorimer’s coat and with an elegant gesture of the arm indicated the bar.
‘You’ll find Sir Simon in there, sir.’
Lorimer looked about him: early evening and the place was quiet. Through a door he caught a glimpse of a large room with armchairs set around round polished tables and large, undistinguished nineteenth-century portraits. As he moved to the bar he saw green baize noticeboards, staff walking briskly and quietly to and fro. The feel was institutional rather than clubby – as he imagined the officers’ mess of a grand regiment might be in time of peace, or the committee rooms of some venerable philanthropic society. His feeling of not belonging was acute and destabilizing.
Sir Simon was standing at the bar, Hogg beside him, darkly and greyly suited, hair oiled back. A smarter Hogg than the one he knew, more menacing somehow, and greeting him with no smile, though Sir Simon was affability itself, asking him what he would drink, recommending a special brand of Scotch – a suggestion backed up with a swift and pointed anecdote – steering him to a corner table where the three of them sat down in scarred leather armchairs. Hogg lit one of his filterless cigarettes, and Sir Simon offered a small black cheroot (politely declined). Smoking material was ignited, smoke soon dominated the atmosphere, and there was some conversation about the severity of the weather and hopelessness of seeking for signs of spring. Lorimer dutifully agreed with everything that was said, and waited.
‘You spoke to Dirk,’ Sir Simon observed, finally. ‘He particularly wanted to meet you.’
‘I can’t think why.’
‘You understood what he – what we – are asking of you?’
‘Discretion?’
‘Absolutely. Absolute discretion.’
Lorimer could not help but look over at Hogg, who was leaning back in his chair, thighs crossed, puffing serenely at his cigarette. Sir Simon noticed.
‘George is completely au fait. There is no remaining problem, I think that’s fair comment, George, isn’t it?’
‘Fair as trousers,’ Hogg said.
Sir Simon smiled. ‘We want you back at GGH, Lorimer. But not now, in a year or so.’
‘May I ask why?’
‘Because you’re in disgrace,’ Hogg said, impatiently. ‘You had to go.’
‘Yes, you should never have gone to Boomslang,’ Sir Simon said disapprovingly, yet with sympathy. ‘That put you beyond the pale, especially as far as Dirk was concerned.’
Lorimer was baffled. ‘Look, I was only trying –’
‘Pull the other one, Black,’ Hogg said with some of his old aggression. ‘You were digging for dirt to save your decomposing hide.’
‘For some answers. And on your instructions.’
‘That’s a pile of bollocks –’
‘– Put it this way,’ Sir Simon interrupted. ‘We have to be seen to have acted. In case. There were serious irregularities.’
‘Not mine,’ Lorimer said, with some force. ‘I was just doing my job.’
‘Every time I hear that excuse,’ Hogg said, vehemently, ‘I reach for my guillotine.’
‘We know you think you were,’ Sir Simon said, more emolliently ‘but that would not be apparent at all to… to others, to outsiders. That’s why it’s better to let you go.’
To become what, Lorimer wondered, cynically? The lone trader, the rogue dealer, the berserk broker? More like the lost loss adjuster. Deniability was heavy in the air along with the blue smoke from Sir Simon’s foul cheroot. There had been some serious level of knavery here, Lorimer thought, some particularly devious and particularly profitable malversation, as it was known, to make these powerful men so calmly concerned. He wondered if he would ever discover what had really been at stake in the Fedora Palace affair, what the true rewards were for the participants. He strongly doubted it.
‘So – I’m the scapegoat?’
‘That’s an unnecessarily crude way of putting it.’
‘Or you could say I’m your insurance.’
‘The analogy is inappropriate.’
‘What about Torquil?’ Lorimer persisted. ‘He was the one that fouled up in the first place.’
‘Torquil is Sir Simon’s godson,’ Hogg said, as if that would put an end to all further conversation.
‘It’s for the best if Torquil is back at Fortress Sure where I can keep an eye on him,’ Sir Simon said, raising a finger to summon the bar steward for another round of drinks. ‘I’m sorry it has to be you, Lorimer, but it’s better this way, long term.’ Drinks were replenished and Sir Simon raised his glass, examining the smoky amber of his whisky against the shaded glow of a nearby lamp.
Better for who, Lorimer thought. For whom?
Sir Simon smelt then sipped his drink – he was clearly in mellow mood.
‘Mud doesn’t stick in our world,’ he said, reflectively, almost with a tone of pleasant surprise. ‘That’s one of the great advantages about this place. Come back in a year – you’ll find everyone has short memories.’
Mud doesn’t stick? Suddenly he was mud-plastered. He was being sacked and with it only the compensation of a vague promise to sweeten the pill.
‘There is one thing I would ask in return for my… discretion,’ he said, sensing Hogg coiling up angrily.
‘You’re in no position to ask for –’
‘–Just a phone call.’ Lorimer scribbled down the details from the scrap of paper in his pocket on to a paper napkin. ‘I’d like Mr Hogg to call this person, Mrs Mary Vernon, or leave a message, and confirm I had nothing to do with the Dupree adjust.’
‘Make any sense to you, George?’ Sir Simon looked to Hogg for confirmation.
Hogg took the napkin from Lorimer. ‘As easy as counting chickens,’ he said, standing up, hitching his trousers over his belly and striding off.
Sir Simon Sherriffmuir smiled at Lorimer. ‘You know, I can practically hear your brain working, dear boy It’s not an advantage. Cultivate a certain languor. A certain ennui. A sharp brain like yours, rudely exposed – it worries people in our world. Keep your light under a gigantic pile of bushels, that’s my advice, and you’ll go much further.’
‘It’s all very well for you to say.’
‘Of course it is. Stop thinking, Lorimer, don’t worry about the big picture, trying to figure out how it all fits. That was what was bothering George. That was why he was becoming so… irate. Now he understands, now he’s an even richer man. And he’s happy. My advice to you is to go away, take a holiday. Go skiing. Go to Australia, people tell me it’s a wonderful place. Have fun. Then come back in a year and give us a call.’ He stood slowly up, the meeting was over. Lorimer allowed himself briefly to admire the exact waisting of Sir Simon’s jacket, its cut audaciously longer than standard.
‘All will be well, Lorimer, all will be well.’
He took Sir Simon’s spread-fingered hand, feeling the latent power in his grip, its firmness, its generous pressure, its sure confidence. It was all lies, of course, but beautiful, de luxe lies, the work of a master craftsman.
‘See you next year, Lorimer. Expect great things.’
In the hall he met Hogg coming back. They sidestepped each other.
‘I left a message,’ Hogg said. ‘Everything’s covered.’
‘Many thanks.’
Hogg scratched his cheek. ‘Well, here we are, Lorimer.’
‘Here we are, Mr Hogg.’
‘What do you want, Lorimer, what’re you after?’
‘Nothing. I’ve got what I want.’
‘Why are you looking at me like that, then?’
‘Like what?’
‘I want to ask you something: did you tell anyone that I was pursuing an amorous liaison with Felicia Pickersgill?’
‘No. Are you?’
‘I’ll have your tripes for garters, Lorimer, if you’re lying to me.’
‘I’m not lying.’
‘Why did you do it?’
‘What?’
‘Dig, dig, dig. When the cranes fly south, Lorimer, the farmer rests on his spade.’
‘You sound like my grandmother.’
‘There’s something feminine about your looks, anyone ever told you that? You’re a handsome young man, Lorimer.’
‘Et in arcadia ego.’
‘You could go far. In any profession.’
‘I’ve got a chance to start a fish farm.’
‘The farming of fish, now there’s a fascinating métier.’
‘Trout and salmon.’
‘Halibut and the sea bream.’
‘Cod and sole.’
‘The John Dory A wonderful fish.’
‘If I start it up I’ll invite you down. It’s in Guildford.’
‘I’m afraid I won’t set foot in Surrey. Sussex, though, now there’s a decent county’
‘Well, I’d better be going, Mr Hogg.’
Hogg’s face froze, his nostrils flared and then, after a moment, he stretched out his hand. Lorimer shook it – Hogg had a grip of iron and Lorimer felt his knuckles grind.
‘Send me a Christmas card. I’ll send you one. It’ll be our signal.’
‘Definitely Mr Hogg.’
Hogg turned, and then immediately turned back.
‘Change is in the nature of things, Lorimer.’
‘The disturbance of anticipation, Mr Hogg.’
‘Good lad.’
‘Cheerio, then.’
‘I’ll keep your seat warm,’ Hogg said thoughtfully, then, ‘and don’t play silly buggers, OK?’
He strode off with his burly bosun’s swagger, a steward pausing politely to let him pass. In the bar Lorimer saw Hogg sit grandly down and accept one of Sir Simon’s cheroots.
Waiting for him at the bottom of the club steps was Kenneth Rintoul. Kenneth Rintoul in his thin black leather greatcoat and a woollen cap standing at the blurry fan of light cast by the great lamps flanking the door.
‘Mr Black.’
Lorimer raised his hands protectively and, he hoped, threateningly, as if they betokened a youth spent in ju-jitsu clubs.
‘Watch it, Rintoul. I have friends in there.’
‘I know. A Mr Hogg told me to meet you here.’
Lorimer glanced over his shoulder, expecting to see Hogg and Sherriffmuir peering out of the window, noses flattened on the pane – or else some covert paparazzo recording this encounter as evidence. Evidence – their insurance.
Lorimer began to walk quickly down the slope towards St James’s Palace, Rintoul kept pace with him, easily.
‘I want to apologize, Mr Black. I want to thank you.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘The law suit’s been dropped. Hogg says this is all thanks to you.’
‘Don’t mention it.’ Lorimer was deep in urgent thought.
‘And I want to apologize, personally, for my earlier, ah, remarks and actions. The phone calls, etcetera. I was out of order.’
‘No problem.’
‘I can’t tell you what this means to me.’ Rintoul had grabbed Lorimer’s right hand and was shaking it vigorously. Lorimer gently retrieved it, convinced this gratitude was now captured on film. ‘What it means to me and Deano.’
‘Could I ask you a couple of questions?’
Ask away, Mr Black.’
‘Simply as a matter of curiosity, tie up some loose ends,’ Lorimer said. ‘Have there been any instances of, of car vandalism near your office?’
‘Funny you should mention it,’ Rintoul said. ‘You know the big wholesale carpet warehouse underneath the office. The owner had his Merc well trashed the other night. Write-off. It’s happening all over, Mr Black. Kids, junkies, eco-warriors. They blame the motor car for all their problems.’
‘But it was you who set my car on fire.’
‘I have to admit it was Deano – he was a desperate man, hard to restrain.’
‘One other thing: did you write BASTA on my car bonnet in letters of sand? BASTA.’
‘BASTA… Wasn’t me, I swear. What’s the logic in writing in sand? If you know what I mean?’
‘Fair point.’
Destined to remain one of life’s mysteries, then, Lorimer thought. Well, not everything could be explained in life, of course. Hogg would echo that – with his urge to disturb all anticipations. Rintoul bade him a warm goodbye and strolled off up Pall Mall, just like Dirk van Meer before him, his stride jaunty, his head held back. Lorimer saw him pause and then the flare of a match silhouetted his woollen cap. All was well in Kenneth Rintoul’s world.
Lorimer walked past Clarence House, heading for the wide boulevard of the Mall, intending to hail a taxi, but then deciding to walk home and think things through, stroll the city streets and try to figure out, despite Sir Simon’s good counsel, just exactly what was going on and why his life was being steadily torn apart. He turned right under the leafless plane trees, his feet crunching on the gravel, and headed towards the broad, solid, floodlit fa?ade of the palace. A flag was flying – so, they were home tonight, good, he liked to know that, when they came and went, he liked them to be there in their big, solid palace, fellow citizens – after a fashion – the thought was obscurely comforting.
Turning into Lupus Crescent, Lorimer saw a small group of people gathered around Marlobe’s flower trolley. He checked his collar was as high as possible, hunched his head down into his shoulders and crossed the street to the other side.
‘Oi,’ Marlobe beckoned him over imperiously. Wearily, he went.
‘I undercharged you on them tulips,’ Marlobe said. ‘You owe me two quid.’
Great, wonderful, have a nice day, Lorimer thought, and searched his pockets for change. He finally gave Marlobe a ten pound note and waited while he fetched out and re-opened his cash box, idly taking in the others gathered under the battery-powered electric light clipped to the awning. There was a young man and young woman whom he did not recognize and Marlobe’s regular crony with the slushing voice. To his minor surprise – nothing was ever going to surprise him in a major way again – they were all looking at the pages of a pornographic magazine, all sprawling, spatchcocked flesh tones on a double spread, debating some point about one of the models. Marlobe, Lorimer’s change in his hand, paused to chip in, jabbing his finger at one particular photograph.
‘It’s you,’ he said to the young woman. ‘It’s you, plain as day. Look at it.’
The girl – she was eighteen, twenty, forty-five – slapped his arm and laughed.
‘Get away’ she said. ‘Dirty bastard.’
‘Wages not enough for you?’ Marlobe leered. ‘Taken up a bit of modelling, eh? Have you? Eh?’ Lorimer recognized her now as someone who worked in their local post office; she had a thin, lively face spoilt by a small mouth.
‘It’s you,’ Marlobe persisted. ‘Spitting image. You’re moonlighting.’
‘Horrible bush,’ Slushing-Voice opined.
‘You’re terrible,’ she said, giggling, administering another weak slap to Marlobe’s forearm. ‘Come on, Malcolm,’ she said to her beau. ‘He’s terrible, isn’t he?’ They walked away, laughing, with many an over-the-shoulder rejoinder.
‘That’s one horrible bush,’ said Slushing-Voice.
‘Let me see,’ Marlobe said, poring over the glossy pages. ‘That’s her, or it’s her twin sister, or I’m a monkey’s arsehole. She’s got a sort of mole on her thigh, look.’
‘She didn’t deny it, eh?’ said Slushing-Voice, knowingly. ‘Bit of a give-away, that.’
Marlobe finally held out Lorimer’s change, still scrutinizing the pictures. ‘What I should’ve done is asked her to drop her knickers so’s I could’ve checked on the mole.’
‘If she’s got a mole on her thigh…’ Slushing-Voice deduced.
‘could I have my change please?’
‘I should’ve asked her if she had a mole.’
‘Look at the minge on that one.’
‘God. What a horrible cunt.’
‘You’re disgusting,’ Lorimer said.
‘Say again?’
‘You’re disgusting, shameful. I’m ashamed to think we’re both human beings.’
‘Just a bit of fun, mate,’ Marlobe said, with his aggressive smile breaking across his face. ‘Bit of chat. You f*ck off out of it if you don’t like it. No one asked you to eavesdrop, did they?’
‘Yeah,’ said Slushing-Voice. ‘Just a bit of fun.’
‘You’re filth. To talk like that in front of her. To talk like that.’
‘She weren’t complaining.’
‘Yeah. F*ck off. Poncey wanker.’
Lorimer, later, did not know what made him do it, indeed he did not know how he even managed to do it but, strengthened by the cumulative power bestowed on him by the day’s trials and humiliations, he stepped forward and took a grip of the lower rim of Marlobe’s flower shack and heaved. Whether it was because the rear flaps were still hinged out, making the edifice top-heavy, or whether it was simple good timing, of the sort weightlifters experience when they go for that final jerk and press, Lorimer did not know, nor could ever evaluate, but – in the event – the whole trolley went over with a dull but satisfyingly heavy bang and a great rushing of water as the metal vases and buckets voided themselves.
Marlobe and Slushing-Voice looked on in shock and some fear.
‘F*ck me,’ said Slushing-Voice.
Marlobe looked suddenly unmanned at this display of strength, all his confidence gone. He took half a step towards Lorimer, then stepped back. Lorimer realized he had his fists raised, his face locked in a grimace, full of hate.
‘There was no call for that,’ Marlobe said in a small voice. ‘No call at all. Bloody hell. Bastard.’ He bent down and began to pick up scattered flowers. ‘Look at my flowers.’
‘The next time you see her,’ Lorimer said, ‘apologize.’
‘We’ll get you, wanker! We’ll sort you, wanker!’ Lorimer heard Slushing-Voice bravely shout after him as he walked down Lupus Crescent. He could feel the adrenalin tremors and shiverings still firing in his body, not sure if it were the residue of his anger or merely the after-effect of his astonishing physical exertion. He opened the door, crossed the dark hall (thinking suddenly of Lady Haigh) and plodded up his stairs, feeling gloom and remorse, self-pity and depression struggling to take possession of his soul.
He stood in his hallway trying to calm himself, trying to bring his ragged breathing under control, and rested his palm talismanically on the crown of his Greek helmet.
An unfamiliar scratching noise on his carpet made him look round and he saw Jupiter nose open the door that led into the sitting room.
‘Hello, boy,’ he said, his voice brimming with pleasure and welcome, suddenly understanding why people kept dogs as pets, as if it were a revelation. He crouched to scratch Jupiter’s neck, pound his ribs, play with his flapping ears. ‘I’ve had a stinking, rotten, vile, depressing, stinking, shitty, vile, rotten day’ he said, suddenly realizing also why people talked to their dogs as if they could be understood. He needed some comfort, some reassurance, some notion of protection, somewhere safe.
He stood up, closed his eyes, opened them, saw his helmet there, picked it up, turned it in his hands and put it on.
It fitted him perfectly, or rather fitted him too perfectly, slipping on as if it had been made for him; and the moment he slid it on, round the back of his head over the bump of his prominent occipital bone, and felt it fit snugly under, almost with an audible click, he knew, he knew at once, that it would not come off.
He tried to take it off, of course, but it was the perfect curve round the back of the helmet, offsetting the small flare of the nape-guard, an elongated, inverted S-shape, a line he had often admired, that made removal impossible. It seemed as if the form of the helmet was designed for a head of exactly his phrenological configuration (perhaps, he suddenly thought, that was what he had subconsciously realized when he saw it? Sensed that recognition and so felt compelled to buy it?). His exact configuration but slightly smaller all round. The nose-guard lay parallel to the bridge of his nose, but not touching, ending the ideal one centimetre beyond his nose’s tip. The oval eye cutouts followed exactly the margin of the bones around the orbital cavity, the jut of the cheek-plates mimicked precisely the forward thrust of his jaw-bone.
He studied his reflection in the sitting-room mirror and liked what he saw. He looked good, he looked tremendous, in fact, exactly like a warrior, a Greek warrior, eyes gleaming behind the rigid metal features of the helmet, mouth firm between the corroded jade-coloured blades of the cheek-plates. The suit, the shirt and the tie looked incongruous but from the neck up he could have passed, he thought, for a minor classical deity.
A minor classical deity with a major problem, he concluded, as he refilled Jupiter’s water bowl and, for want of anything else, provided him with some sustenance in the form of squares of bread soaked in milk which, he was glad to see, Jupiter ate with tongue-smacking gusto.
He spent another ten fruitless minutes trying to ease the helmet off, but in vain. What to do? What to do? He paced about his flat-Jupiter dozing, sprawled indelicately on the sofa, cock and balls on show, quite at home – catching the occasional satisfying glimpse of this helmeted figure as it strode past the mirror on the mantelpiece, to and fro, the metal head with its shadowed oval eyes, sternly expressionless.
398. The Proof of Armour. The armed man could not afford to take chances, and so his equipment had to be ‘proved’, guaranteed that it could withstand the impact of a point blank thrust from a lance or shot from an arrow, and, later, from a pistol, arquebus, caliver and musket. In the Musée d’Artillerie the breastplate of the Duc de Guise is of great thickness and there are three bullet marks on it, none of which has penetrated.
It was, paradoxically, this very fact – that armour was indeed proof against firearms (and not that the arrival of firearms made armour obsolete) – which led to it being abandoned. In the seventeenth century Sir John Ludlow noted that, ‘Where there was some reason to fear the violence of muskets and pistols they made their armour thicker than before and have now so far exceeded that, instead of armour, they have laden their bodies with anvils. The armour that they now carry is so heavy that its weight will benumb a gentleman’s shoulders of thirty-five years of age.’
The armoured man had proved that his suit of tempered steel could withstand the most powerful weapons in use, but in so doing discovered that the increase in the heaviness of the metal in which he clad his body produced a weight that became burdensome in the extreme and, finally, insupportable.
The Book of Transfiguration
‘Hi, Slobodan, it’s Milo. Got a bit of a problem here.’
‘Talk to me, Milo.’
‘How do you fancy owning a dog?’
Slobodan was over in half an hour and looked admiringly round Lorimer’s flat.
‘Nice place, Milo. Real smart, yeah?’ He rapped his knuckles on the helmet. ‘Won’t budge, eh?’
‘No. This is Jupiter.’
Slobodan knelt by the sofa and gave Jupiter a thorough scratching, patting, going over. ‘He’s a nice old fella. Ain’t you, boy? Going to come and live with Lobby, eh, old fella?’ Jupiter put up with his ministrations uncomplainingly.
‘Why did you put that helmet on, you great berk?’ Slobodan asked.
‘I felt like it.’
‘Not like you, Milo, do something so daft.’
‘Give me a minute to tidy some things away’ he said. While he had been waiting for his brother to arrive a vague plan of action had begun to establish itself in his mind. He collected crucial documents and his passport, threw some clothes, a few CDs and The Book of Transfiguration into a grip and was ready.
‘Where to, bro?’ Slobodan asked.
‘Emergency Kensington and Chelsea Hospital.’
It was a strange moment leaving number 11 and walking down Lupus Crescent with Slobodan and jupiter. The world he saw was confined by the edges of the eyeholes, and he was aware of the blackness beyond the metal edge defining his field of vision, though he could no longer feel the weight of the helmet, as if the beaten bronze had fused with the bones of his skull and had become one, man and helmet, helmed-man, manhelmet, helmetman. Helmetman, cartoon hero, minor deity, toppler of flower vans, scourge of the foul-mouthed and ungallant, eliciting apologies for insulted damsels. He was pleased to see that Marlobe and Slushing-Voice had clearly been unable to right the overturned flower trolley, still lying on its side amidst a fritter of petals and vegetation and a widening pool of flower water. The helmeted warrior passed by his fallen prey and climbed aboard his burnished chariot.
‘Going well?’ Lorimer asked as the Cortina accelerated up Lupus Street.
‘Like a dream. Built to last, these cars. Magic.’
Slobodan came with him to the reception area, where he was logged in with no comment and directed to sit in a waiting room with a groaning child and his mother and a young whimpering woman holding her limp wrist like a dead fish. He told Slobodan there was no need to wait and he thanked him sincerely.
‘He’ll be in a good home, Milo, no worries.’
‘I know’
‘Funny, always fancied a dog. Thanks, mate.’
‘He’ll be no trouble.’
‘Mercy can take him for walks.’
Mercy and Jupiter, Lorimer thought, that will be nice.
Slobodan left and Lorimer sat on, waiting. An ambulance arrived, sirens yelping, lights revolving, and a sheeted body on a trolley was rushed in and trundled through swinging double doors. The groaning child was seen, then the whimpering girl and finally it was his turn.
The cubicle was dazzlingly bright and he was faced with a dark-faced, tiny woman doctor, with big, slipping spectacles and a mass of shiny black hair loosely coiled and pinned on her head. Her name-tag said ‘Dr Rathmanatathan’.
‘Are you from Ceylon?’ Lorimer asked as she jotted down a few details.
‘Doncaster,’ she said in a flat Northern accent. ‘And it’s currently known as Sri Lanka, these days, not Ceylon.’
‘It used to be called Serendip, you know’
She looked at him neutrally. ‘So, what happened.’
‘I put it on. I don’t know why. It’s a very valuable antique, almost three thousand years old.’
‘It belongs to you?’
‘Yes. I was feeling… feeling depressed and I just put it on. And obviously it won’t come off.’
‘Funnily enough that little boy had swallowed a teaspoon. I asked him why and he said the same as you: he was feeling depressed so he swallowed a tea-spoon.’ She stood up and came over to him. Topped it in his mouth and down it went.’
Standing, she was barely taller than he was, sitting. She gave the helmet a few tugs and saw how well it fitted. She peered into his eye-slits.
‘We’re going to have to cut it off, I’m afraid. Is it very expensive?’
‘Yes. But never mind.’
He did feel oddly careless – care-less, literally. He would never, in any circumstances, have put this helmet on but the travails of the day had forced him into this act and he felt oddly privileged to have worn it for an hour or two. Walking around his flat, waiting for Slobodan, his mind had seemed strangely lucid and calm – probably because there was nothing he could do about the helmet–problem – but, more fancifully, he now wondered if it were something to do with the helmet itself, its very antiquity, the thought of the ancient warrior for whom it had been designed, some sort of transference –
He stopped himself: he was beginning to sound like David Watts. Sheer Achimota. There but for the grace of God.
The staff nurse, male, who came in with powerful clippers, said it was like slicing through stiff leather. He cut the helmet up the back, half way through the occipital bulge before, with a little easing, it came off.
‘You could solder it back together,’ Doctor Rathmanat-athan said, helpfully, handing the helmet to him.
The world was a suddenly much wider, less shadowed place and his head did feel different, lighter, swaying slightly on his neck. He touched his hair, it was damp, soaked with sweat.
‘Perhaps I will,’ Lorimer said, placing it in his bag, ‘or perhaps I’ll leave it, to remind me of this evening. A souvenir.’
The staff nurse and Dr Rathmanatathan looked at him strangely, as if the thought had struck them that, actually, he might be mad.
‘It still has value for me,’ Lorimer said.
He thanked them both, shook their hands and asked reception to order him a mini-cab. There was much still left to do this evening. He told the driver to take him to the Institute of Lucid Dreams.