Johnson Johnson 04 - Dolly and the Doctor Bird (10 page)

He gazed at me. “No doubt we shall have to close down,” he said. “But in spite of that, Doctor MacRannoch, I wish you to take ten days’ sick leave.”

I fear I spoke with some sharpness. “My hair will hardly have made much progress, Doctor, in ten days.”

“No,” he said. “But I feel ten days’ peace will give us the strength to confront you. Close the door on the outside.”

I had turned on my heel when he called out, “Couldn’t you wear a wig?” But when I looked over my shoulder, he merely shook his head and answered himself: “No, you couldn’t.”

I was hungry, but James Ulric was at home. I put on my wig. I got out the Ford, and rattled down to park it off Bay Street, and went through the dark Jacobean doors of El Morocco and had a cold turkey sandwich, which in Nassau is a whole turkey with salad and bread somewhere around the perimeter. The girl, who was forty-two, overweight, and had varicose veins, pushed the bunny frill up from her brow and asked what I wanted to drink.

An advertisement in front of my nose for Grand Bahama said:

Come Play On The Adult Island
.

I said, “What have you got?”

I am aware that this does not sound like the climacteric it actually was. The waitress intoned a long and incomprehensible list of alcoholic drinks. I said, “What’s a Bossa Nova?”

“It’s a dance, ma’am,” she said. “This drink’s named itself after it. Rum, apricot brandy, and pineapple juice, ma’am. Very special.”

“I’ll have one,” I said.

A man, a good-looking man, said, “Is this anyone’s seat?” and I said, “I’m sorry. I’m expecting a friend.”

There were plenty of other seats. Equally, it was obvious that I was halfway through my meal. He smiled and moved off. The Bossa Nova came and I drank a third of it off. I had brains, good health, and clean habits. Why the hell should these go for nothing unless I had a trendy dress and hair style as well?

I drank the second third of my Bossa Nova. It was rather good, with a deep fruity taste. I wondered how I could get hold of T. K. MacRannoch.

I drank the last of it, and pulled out my wallet in a casual way to flutter dollars onto the bill. Dollars, in the plural. I had to put a fork on top to keep them from blowing away. Then I left and got into the Ford and rattled off to the villa.

James Ulric had gone. I knew it by the singing and laughter going on in the kitchen, which stopped as I unlocked the door. Daffodil, our housekeeper, trotted in and said, “Oh Miss Beltanno, how smart you look, Miss Beltanno…”

I cut it short, though all the others were crushed in the doorway now, gaping. Father had packed, taken the car and gone to the airport: to fly to Great Harbour Cay and Crab Island.

Lost in slightly hazed thought, I wandered alone through the house. Daffodil brought me coffee and I took it into the study. The files on the MacRannoch Gathering had gone.

So. The Begum was on Crab Island with Krishtof Bey and Johnson, soon to be joined by my father. Sir Bartholomew and Lady Edgecombe were at Great Harbour Cay, the next island, where Wallace Brady also stayed. Sooner or later, if I knew my father, to one island or the other would come every MacRannoch in the Bahamas and beyond.

Including T. K. MacRannoch, my father’s heir. I thought of what I had said to my father. Said out of pique, I well knew: it was the single unthinkable outcome of all his maneuverings which he would never face. Through the female line, if I were to marry, all the blood and wealth of the MacRannochs would be safely transmitted to good Caucasian stock. But for me to marry his Japanese heir!

I laughed to myself, sitting there drinking my coffee, though guardedly. I remembered vaguely that alcohol is really not to be recommended after a blow on the head. It didn’t seem to be having any effect. I wondered how I would strike T. K. MacRannoch with my blue dress and my wig. All I knew of him was that he played golf.

I got up and looked for my golf bags. I got my old cloth suitcase and put into it three sets of clean underwear, my girdles, my stockings, my toilet bag, my pajamas, dressing gown and slippers, and my brush. I took out my brush.

Handkerchiefs. My Horrocks cotton. My Bri-nylon two-piece, which had been washed. My bathing suit, bathing cap, and towel. Two pairs of sandals and one pair of tie shoes. Two skirts and two shirts for golfing. One crepe dress with short sleeves for evening, and a cardigan, in case it was chilly. A plastic raincoat and headscarf… Sudden doubt. I added a small plastic hood.

The suitcase, of medium size, was quite full. I looked at it with quiet satisfaction and then with a shock caught sight of my new head in the mirror. The head didn’t go with any of the clothes in the case.

Too bad, Beltanno. I shut the case and locked it, and lay down on the bed because my head had started to ache. I was wakened by the telephone ringing.

It was Sir Bartholomew Edgecombe, from Great Harbour Cay. “Doctor MacRannoch? I phoned the hospital and they say you’re on sick leave. Are you all right? You are? How long are you to be off? Right,” said Bartholomew Edgecombe. “Listen. A company plane from Great Harbour Cay is landing at four-thirty at Nassau. There are no tickets to buy and nothing to do. Just walk onto the plane, and you’ll be taken care of. Denise and I want you here as our guest.”

I didn’t know about Denise, but unmistakably, Sir Bartholomew’s voice was sincere. “It’s very kind of you—”I began, when he broke in.

“I’m being selfish, not kind. What do you think it’s worth to have my own private M.D. staying with me?” He sounded as if he were joking, but I knew that in a sense he did mean it. He added, “And if that isn’t sufficient inducement, let me tell you that you won’t be the only MacRannoch in sight.”

I opened my mouth. “Oh?” I said.

“Yes. I had a look at the Tamboo register to see who’d arrived since I left and I see there’s one of your clan dealing death on the golf course. Chap by the name of T. K. MacRannoch. Any relation? Or is it heresy to claim relationship to the clan chieftain’s daughter?”

“Oh no,” I said. “Father always says we should stand shoulder to shoulder, a single blood brotherhood. Coherent, that’s us.”

Bart Edgecombe laughed. “You certainly are, Doctor,” he said. “Can we expect you then, on that plane?”

“Yes. And thank you,” I said, holding the back of my head.

My emotions, to be candid, were exceedingly mixed. My lifelong small-arms battle with the MacRannoch was one thing; the attempts on Sir Bartholomew’s life another entirely. I was going to stay with the Edgecombes. And I had just received a blow on the head to dissuade me from doing this very thing. What was more, Johnson wouldn’t even be present. Instead, I should have the company of one of our suspects. Wallace Brady, the engineer, lived and worked on Great Harbour Cay.

To protect myself I had my common sense. And the protection a doctor always carries in his medical bag. And the little Frommer, 6½ inches long, which Johnson had given me, to keep in my handbag. “Remember,” he’d said cheerfully. “Aim for the right wing, in self-defense only. Corpses are tricky things to dispose of. And don’t go anywhere lonely with less than two people.”

Which was all very well. Then I remembered the blisters, and felt slightly penitent.

I approved his reticence. On the other hand, I supposed this was his profession. I went out for a session with Daffodil, and then placing my suitcase and two bags in the Ford Anglia, drove off to the airport to meet the 4:30 from Great Harbour Cay.

It was there already: a handsome blue and white DC-3 standing out in the sunlight, with a background of larger taxiing planes like moths on a windowpane. And standing at the foot of the steps waiting to board it was Sergeant Rodney Trotter. He wore a short-sleeved checkered shirt with a pair of smartly creased pale gray trousers, a neckerchief, and a smile of ineffable welcome.

“Doctor!” he shouted. “Here I was, getting a hang-up. Thought I was going on my lonesome.”

I walked to the base of the steps before replying. “There seems to be plenty of time. Were you expecting me?”

“Yes! Sir Bartholomew said I’d have you for company. I’m on my way to the Begum’s,” said Trotter. He studied me with unconcealed interest. “They said I wouldn’t know you, and my word, they were right. It’s a sensation, Doctor MacRannoch.”

I put a foot on the steps. “I’m beginning to wonder what I looked like before,” I said freezingly. “Mother Goose?” And left him to heave in the luggage.

It didn’t stop him in due course from sitting down on the sofa beside me. It was one of a facing pair in oatmeal with hide trim, and was equipped with three sets of safety belts. The rest of the plane was filled with single and double seats with matching small tables; the bar in white and daffodil stripes was accessibly placed in the center.

The saloon was close carpeted in maize tumble-twist with maize linen curtains to match and held about ten of us so far, I noticed. Two of the faces seemed familiar, but I wouldn’t care to go further. I am not a devotee of the big or small screen. We fastened our belts and the engines increased their impact in decibels.

“Mr. Johnson mentioned the tattoo business, I believe,” Sergeant Trotter roared in my ear.

The choice of subject at that moment appeared oddly capricious. I nodded.

His brown, vigorous face became wreathed with bonhomie and a certain tinge of relief. “It’ll be a great opportunity,” he shouted. “You know, they’ve never had a Highland Gathering? Never?”

Light broke. “You mean my father?”

He beamed. He nodded. The extraordinary noise slackened as we reached the end of the runway, and he was able to say in a moderate shout: “Well, the Begum anyway. She didn’t want to say too much about it until she was sure of your father. But he’s agreed, I’m glad to say; and here I am, off to Crab Island to plan it.”

A tattoo? For the MacRannoch Gathering? On Crab Island? I stared at him in outraged disbelief. Locked in a trance of professional pleasure, he did not even observe it. “But don’t you worry your head. Whatever way it’s done, it’ll be a sure-fire success. I’ve run tattoos every place in the world from gym stadia in Australia to old airfields in the back hills of India, and if anyone can get one off the ground, it’s Rodney Trotter.”

“I’m sure you can,” I said. The engines roared painfully and we moved off. I waited until we were airborne and said, “Does the army pay you to do this, Sergeant Trotter?”

“In a way. I’m seconded,” he said. “Six years in Aldershot and twenty-two years in Edinburgh: there can’t be a man alive in the world today knows as much about tattoos as I do. We used to get people from all over the world — generals, even — coming to ask us how to put on a show as good as we did for Edinburgh. It got so that we hardly had time to lift our heads before someone was at us again: how do you do the seating, what do you feed the troops, how much lighting have the bandsman got to have, what do you do if it’s raining…”

“So they decided it was cheaper to put you on circuit,” I said.

“Well,” said the sergeant. “A matter of public relations, they said. My brigadier does the big ones, or we do them together. And the little ones I get to myself.”

“What does a little one cost?” I said. A well-made-up girl in a black dress had opened the bar and was moving from seat to seat taking orders.

For the first time Sergeant Trotter returned to the discretion of our earlier acquaintance. “Well, now; that’s a matter for the Begum, once it’s worked out,” he said. “It was her idea, you know. Your dad had just dreamed up the idea of a Bahamian Gathering, and it was the Begum who thought of the tattoo.”

“With a performance by Krishtof Bey?” I said impolitely. The stewardess bent over me and I ordered a Bossa Nova.

“I hope not,” said Sergeant Trotter. He appeared to be looking at me with respect. He ordered a beer, and said, “You know why?”

“No,” I said. It was beginning to turn out like Miami. Or maybe it was just a postconcussive syndrome. The drinks came, in plastic cups with large paper napkins. I took a sustaining draft of mine and said, “Why?”

Sergeant Trotter sat, cup in large hand, and fixed me with an inimical glare. “Because they go sick, that’s why,” he said. “Every time you’ve got a star performer, something happens. Like the six Arab legionnaires that was to trot their camels up and down in a war dance.”

“Who got sick?” I said. “The Arabs or the camels?”

“Camels?” said the sergeant, and tipped down half his beer. “The camels never even got into the country. No license, see. So what do we do — we hire six more from a circus.”

The Bossa Nova was sinking agreeably into my interior. “You did?” I said. “The army?”

“Well. The show must go on,” said Sergeant Trotter. “And then one of them bloody legionnaires reports sick and they must have a reserve to go on, or else the pattern won’t come right. So guess who’s an Arab legionnaire.”

“You,” I guessed. It was easy.

He nodded violently. “All done up with black beard and nightie. And they’d sent the wrong bloody camels. There we were with saddles for one hump and the bastards had given us camels with two. We had to pad them with old socks. I’ve been a Canadian Mounty.”

“You have?” I said.

“And a Turkish janissary. And a Danish cadet in one of them bellboy uniforms. I’ve been a Spahi and an American marine and an Evzone Greek Royal Guard. I was even a Gurkha once, with me bloody face blacked, but they had to take me out because I was two feet taller than the biggest of them. I’ve been everything but the Manchester Drum Majorettes.”

I finished my drink. “In my opinion,” I said carefully, “you’ll end up in a psychiatric ward if you do that too often.”

He finished his drink. “Do you think so?” he said worriedly. We thought about it in companionable silence as the plane circled and prepared to land on Great Harbour Cay.

I remember looking down on the island: the dense blue rippled sea blending to the familiar shades of apple green and emerald and biscuit where the white beaches ran out of the water, marked with a stitching of seaweed. The island was long, like a boomerang, with a long gently incurved golden beach above the knuckle, perfectly empty. The interior I saw only as low purple-green bushes, scored by a crosshatching of white, newly made roads and infiltrated here and there by the blue of the sea. Of people and houses, there was at first glance no sight at all.