I sighed, hoping this would make me appear thoughtful and serious and in possession of a great Golden Age intelligence. ‘The trouble is, if you live long enough, you end up running out of childhoods eventually.’
Zelda offered me a cigarette, which I accepted (I was smoking now – everyone was smoking now), and then placed one in Scott’s mouth, and another in her own. A kind of wild despair flared suddenly in her eyes as she struck the match. ‘Grow up or crack up,’ she said, after the first inhale. ‘The divine choices we have . . .’
‘If only we could find a way to stop time,’ said her husband. ‘That’s what we need to work on. You know, for when a moment of happiness floats along. We could swing our net and catch it like a butterfly, and have that moment for ever.’
Zelda was now looking across the crowded bar. ‘The trouble is they stick pins in butterflies. And then they are dead . . .’ She seemed to be looking for someone. ‘Sherwood’s gone. But, oh, look! It’s Gertrude and Alice.’
And within moments they had disappeared through the packed room with their cocktails and, though they made it perfectly clear I could join them, I stayed there with nothing but vodka and tomato juice for company, staying in the safe shadows of history.
London, now
It is strange how close the past is, even when you imagine it to be so far away. Strange how it can just jump out of a sentence and hit you. Strange how every object or word can house a ghost.
The past is not one separate place. It is many, many places, and they are always ready to rise into the present. One minute it is the 1590s, the next it is the 1920s. And it is all related. It is all the accumulation of time. It builds up and builds up and can catch you violently off guard at any moment. The past resides inside the present, repeating, hiccupping, reminding you of all the stuff that no longer is. It bleeds out from road signs and plaques on park benches and songs and surnames and faces and the covers of books. Sometimes just the sight of a tree or a sunset can smack you with the power of every tree or sunset you have ever seen and there is no way to protect yourself. There is no possible way of living in a world without books or trees or sunsets. There just isn’t.
‘Are you okay?’ Camille asks me, her hand resting on the cover of her book, so only the word ‘tender’ is visible.
‘Yes. I’m still getting these headaches, though.’
‘Have you been to the doctor?’
‘No. But I will.’ Going to the doctor, of course, is the last thing I am going to do.
I look at her. She has the kind of face that makes you want to speak, to tell things to. It is a dangerous face.
‘Maybe you need some more sleep,’ she says.
I wonder what she means, and she can see me wondering, because then she says: ‘I saw on Facebook that you liked my post at three in the morning. That’s an interesting time for you to be awake on a school night.’
‘Oh.’
There is a sliver of mischief in her smile. ‘Is it a habit of yours? Spying on women’s Facebook pages in the middle of the night?’
I feel ashamed.
‘It . . . wh . . . came up on my feed.’
‘I’m only joking with you, Tom. You need to lighten up a little bit.’
If only she could understand the weight of things. The gravity of time. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, ‘for the heaviness.’
‘It’s all right. Life is like that sometimes.’
Maybe she does understand. ‘I’m just a bit awkward around people.’
‘I get it. L’enfer, c’est les autres.’
‘Sartre?’
‘Oui. Dix points. Sartre. Mr Comedy himself.’
I force a smile and don’t say anything because the only thing I have in my head is that the sight of her face comforts me and scares me all at once. So instead I ask her something. It is a question I have often asked over the years. The question is: ‘Do you know anyone called Marion?’
She frowns. I really confuse her.
‘A French Marion or an English one?’
‘English,’ I say. ‘Or either.’
She thinks. ‘I went to school with a Marion. Marion Rey. She told me about periods. My parents were prudes. They never told me. And it is quite a thing not to be told about, you know, this blood coming out of you.’
She says this at a normal volume. There are still other people in the room. Stephanie is still frowning at us, holding the stone of her plum between her fingers. Isham is on his mobile phone, two seats away. I like her lack of shame.
I know I should engage in chit-chat. I know all the signs that chit-chat is required are there. But I ignore the signs.
‘Any other Marions?’
‘No, I’m sorry.’
‘That’s all right. I’m sorry. That is all I really wanted to say.’
She smiles and looks at me, and finds something in my gaze that troubles her. I feel she is trying to think where she knows me from again.
‘Life is always mysterious,’ she says. ‘But some mysteries are bigger than others.’
And then there is a little silence, and I force another smile and I walk away.
PART FOUR
The Pianist
Bisbee, Arizona, 1926
It was August. I was in the living room of a small timber house on the edge of town, on assignment for Hendrich. Every eight years there was an assignment. That was the deal. You did the assignment and then you moved on to the next place and Hendrich helped you change your identity and kept you safe. The only time you were ever in danger was during the assignment itself. Though I had been lucky. I had done three assignments before this one and they had all been successful. In other words: I had managed to locate the albas in question and convince them to join the society. No violence had been necessary. No real test of character. But here, in Bisbee, everything changed. Here, I was about to find out who I was. And the lengths I would go to, to find Marion.
Even though it was now evening and the dark was quickly dissolving the red mountains outside the window, the heat was intense. It was like the burning air outside but concentrated, like someone had decided to squeeze all of the desert heat into that timber house.
Sweat dripped off my nose and onto the nine of diamonds.
‘Y’aint used to heat much, are ya? Where you been hiding? Alaska? You been gold digging up in Yukon?’ That was the skinny toothless one who asked that. The one with two fingers missing on his left hand. The one who went by the name of Louis. He took another slug of whisky and swallowed it down without a flinch.
‘Been hiding all over,’ I said. ‘I have to.’
Then the other one – Joe – the one who’d just surprised me with a royal flush, the larger, cleverer one, started to laugh ominously. ‘This is all very interessin’ an’ all, and we always appreciate suppin’ moonshine with strangers. ’Specially ones wi’ some green in their pockets. But y’aint from Cochise County. Can always tell. Just from your clothes. See, everyone round here has a taint to ’em. From the dust. From the mines. You don’t see no cotton that white ’round Bisbee. And look at your hands. Clean as snow.’
I looked down at my hands. I was very used to the sight of them, these days, from all the music I had been playing. I had taught myself piano. That is what I had done with the last eight years.