The Good Mayor (47 page)

For one thing, he woke, exhausted, in a tangle of sheets, too late for the tram to work, with Agathe beside him. Her mouth was open, her tongue visible between strong white teeth as she breathed. He left her sleeping and made breakfast which he fed to her by finger-fuls as she lay across him in bed and he kissed her on the nose between bites.

“I must go to work,” he said at last.

“Why must you go to work?” she asked and, since Dalmatians see things so much more clearly and Tibo could not think of any reasonable answer, he stayed a little longer.

“I must go to work,” he said at last.

“Yes, I suppose you must,” said Agathe. “Would you like me to come with you?”

“No, I don’t think so. I don’t think Peter Stavo would understand.”

“He’s never liked dogs,” said Agathe.

So Tibo went into town alone and, although it was almost noon when he arrived outside The Golden Angel, he decided to stop for coffee anyway. The morning rush was over, the lunchtime rush had not yet begun and Tibo took his usual place at the high table near the door.

A moment or two later, a waiter began his slow glissando, stepping forward, napkin over his arm, ready to take the mayor’s usual order. But he stopped in his tracks, frozen to the spot by a flash of Morse from Cesare’s eyebrows and then—wonder of wonders—il patrone himself stepped out from behind the coffee organ and said, “What can I get you, Mr. Mayor?”

Tibo held out his hand and Cesare took it and they looked into one another’s eyes for a bit and Tibo said, “The usual please, Mr. Cesare.”

Cesare snapped his fingers above his head like castanets and, without letting go of Tibo’s hand, he shouted, “The usual for my friend Mayor Krovic.” And then, in a confidential tone, he asked, “How are things?”

“A hundred times worse,” said Tibo, “and much, much better.”

Cesare said, “A good friend of mine once told me that there is not so much love in the world that we can afford to waste a drop of it, no matter where we find it. Your coffee’s here.”

Cesare took a cup from the waiter who now stood nervously at his shoulder and placed it carefully on the table in front of Tibo. “On the house,” he said. “Enjoy.” And he retreated to the coffee organ again.

When, a few moments later, Tibo finished his coffee and stepped out into Castle Street, Cesare did not acknowledge his going by so much as a nod. All that needed to be said had been said—there was no more to add.

Castle Street, The Golden Angel, White Bridge, City Square, none of it was usual or normal, everything had taken on a new colour for Tibo, as if he were seeing it for the first time, as if he were seeing it for the last time and then, when he arrived in his office, there was the letter, waiting on his desk. It was not signed but Tibo recognised the wide nib and the flamboyant hand. He had seen it only the day before on a piece of council stationery. It said, “Given all the hubbub of recent days, perhaps you should take a short holiday in Dash. Inform whomsoever must be informed. Leave all the arrangements to me. Until this evening.”

Hubbub. A nice word. Tibo tried it out in his mouth a little, “Hubbub. Hubbub,” and found that it tasted of huge carp sinking silently into dark green pools.

Tibo took another sheet of notepaper from Agathe’s desk and wrote a letter to the Town Clerk. “Dear Gorvic, Not quite myself. I have decided on a few days in Dash for a change of air.” He looked at it proudly. It was his first official lie.

Then, after he had answered some mail and written “The cheapest option is not always the best,” across a query from the Parks Department, he found there was almost nothing left to do. So, after half an hour of wondering what it was that he had ever found to do, Tibo filled his pockets with ginger biscuits from the tin by the coffee machine and, munching them as he went, he walked home.

GATHE WAS IN THE GARDEN. THE WIND
had turned towards the south-west and the cold weather of the past week was gone. Dot lay washed in sunshine, enjoying a few last days of Indian summer before the Fire Brigade Band packed away its cymbals and its tubas, before the geese on the Ampersand sniffed the wind and turned their heads to the south and flew off, dragging winter behind them on their wings.

She had spent the morning lying in the cool, round shadow of a giant cotoneaster bush. The sunlight falling between the leaves left dark spotted shadows on her skin and she twitched away a tiny fly that landed on her ear. There was nothing to see. She liked that. She liked being low down and hidden, out of sight, safe. She liked not worrying about the washing, not fretting in case some kid in Canal Street kicked a dirty football against it. She didn’t have to hide her purse any more. She didn’t even have a purse, not even a pocket to keep one in—but she had enough to eat and she was loved and she wasn’t afraid.

Lying in the shade, glorying in the heat and the blaze of green light that shone up from the lawn, Agathe thought, “This is nice.” She stretched out and rolled on her back. The dry earth with its sprinkle of dead leaves left her clean and white. “This is nice,” she thought. “I have Tibo to look after me and he lets me love him and he’s not angry and I don’t have to do anything. This is nice.” She felt that she had awakened from a long dream where she had thought herself a woman, grown up, got a job, lived and loved and
been happy and sad—sometimes very sad—and then, just when the dream had become too much to bear, she had come back to herself and real life as a dog. There was such a feeling of relief and contentment and she was amazed at herself and the life she had lived before. It was as if she had been brought up in some huge fairground hall of mirrors and only now, lying under a bush in the sunshine, could she see the world as it really was for the first time, without the bends and the wobbles.

Agathe rolled on to her tummy. She could feel warm blobs of sunlight on her skin where they fell through the tattered parasol of the bush. That fly settled on her ear again but this time she let it stay. There was the sound of a lawnmower slicing through the afternoon in the next garden but one. Slowly she went to sleep.

When Tibo got home to the old house at the end of the blue-tiled path, he walked through the kitchen calling her name, found the door to the garden open and sat on the grass watching her, enjoying her. He took another ginger biscuit from his pocket and broke it. The sudden crunch woke her.

“Want one?” he asked.

“I remember these,” she said, as if ginger biscuits in the Town Hall belonged to a time years before and not the day before yesterday in Peter Stavo’s lodge.

He offered her another. “Agathe, I’m going away soon.”

“Yes, but I’ll be going with you, won’t I?”

“If you want to. Yes, I’d like that.”

“That’s all right, then.”

“Yes, Agathe. I think that’s all right.” He held another ginger biscuit between his lips and she bit it away.

“Let’s go in the house now, Agathe.”

Tibo walked back to the kitchen door and, a little while later, she followed him in. They were still in the kitchen, Tibo sitting at the table, Agathe sitting under it when, towards ten that evening, the doorbell rang.

“Stay here,” he said.

Tibo hurried to answer the door and he found Yemko, gasping
and almost unable to stand, demanding, “A chair, for God’s sake, Krovic, a chair!” in insistent wheezes. “Your garden path is an interminable torment,” he breathed.

Tibo ran back to the kitchen and returned with a straight-backed chair which creaked discreetly. Closing the front door, Good Mayor Krovic noticed the hearse-like bulk of Yemko’s taxi, muttering on broken springs under a yellow street lamp, waiting, darkly.

He closed the door. “Can I offer you something?” he asked.

Yemko shook his head. He sat half-folded on the groaning kitchen chair, his hands dangling at his sides, his lawyer’s briefcase at his feet until, in spite of Tibo’s order, Agathe came out from the kitchen, came quietly down the hall and sniffed, gently, at Yemko’s huge fingers and licked them.

He looked down at her and smiled. He said, “Once upon a time there was a dear lady to whom I pledged my friendship. Sadly, if she were here today and a fugitive from justice, I would have no alternative but to hand her over to the authorities but you,” he said, stroking Agathe’s head, “bring to mind her great loveliness and her many charms, although you are, quite obviously, only a dog.”

Agathe said nothing to that but she held Yemko’s gaze for some while until he said, “Dear God, Krovic, have you no softer chair than this and is there no brandy in the house of the Mayor of Dot?”

Tibo led the way to his sitting room where Yemko filled the couch, cradling an improbable glass of brandy. He seemed completely at home but, when Tibo went to draw the curtains and light the lamps, he hissed a warning. “Best not, old chap. Let’s leave things as they are for now.”

Yemko opened his briefcase and removed a blizzard of papers. “Am I right in thinking you are unknown in Virgule, Mayor Krovic?”

Tibo nodded. “I’ve never even been there,” he said.

“All to the good.” Yemko handed over the first of his documents. “This is a will dated six months ago and naming, as your
sole beneficiary, one Gnady Vadim, commercial traveller of 173 Mazzini Street, Virgule. It nominates me as your executor and instructs me to sell this house and contents and to pass the proceeds and all pension entitlements to dear Gnady. It is properly witnessed and notarised and requires only your signature.”

From his top pocket Yemko produced a fat black fountain pen and, with his left hand, flourished another sheaf of papers. “These documents identify you, indisputably as Gnady Vadim of 173 Mazzini Street, Virgule. This,” Yemko waved a small book with a blue cover, “is his bank account and these,” there was a faint, silverish jingle between his fingers, “are the keys to the flat at 173 Mazzini Street.”

Good Mayor Krovic began to speak but Yemko silenced him with an eyebrow. “Do not interrupt,” he said. “Tomorrow morning at seven, my taxi will arrive at your garden gate. The driver will get out. You and any companion of your choice will drive, with the blinds drawn, to catch the seven-thirty ferry sailing for Dash. On the ferry, you and any companion will remain, at all times, inside the taxi. You will speak to no one. Once at Dash, you will drive to this,” he handed Tibo a brochure, “hotel, where a booking has been made in your name, inclusive of full garaging services for your vehicle. You will go to your room alone and any companion will remain in the taxi at all times. You will take dinner before taking charge of the very small, pitifully frail craft which has been provided for a relaxing night fishing trip—a trip which will end in tragedy and from which you and any companion will never return.”

“Never return,” said Tibo blankly.

“Never, because, if you use this,” another small silver flourish produced a pocket compass, “if you use this and sail all night long then, with luck, you will find yourself in Virgule by morning. Sink the boat. Sink Tibo Krovic with it, walk ashore as Gnady Vadim, walk in your wet boots to Mazzini Street. Live there with the companion of your choice for a month or so—there’s enough in the bankbook—and, very soon, you will come into your inheritance from poor cousin Tibo. Then you simply disappear.”

After a long week of astonishments, Good Mayor Krovic found himself more astounded than ever. “Is any of this legal?” he said.

“Poor, poor Tibo Krovic. Poor Good Tibo Krovic still fretting over what’s legal instead of what’s right, still not sure if what’s right is also what’s good. Does it matter? Do you care? What difference does it make? Is it legal? No! But the question you should have asked is ‘Will it stand up in court?’ and I guarantee that it will. Now sign.”

OOR TIBO LAY AWAKE ALL NIGHT, CHIDING
himself for not getting plenty of sleep ahead of his long row to Virgule, fretting over his second official lie and listening to Agathe sleeping where she lay over his outstretched arm. She was a symphony of mutterings and twitches, strange little mewlings and lunges on the bed. “Chasing rabbits”—that’s what they called it. He kissed her gently on top of the head and went back to listening to the dark.