Upright Piano Player (14 page)

Back in London, Henry checked his messages. There was nothing. He realized that he was disappointed. He had a shower but knew he would not sleep. His head was too full of the day’s events. It had been a good day, better than he could have hoped for—the day he became a grandfather, the day he had been reunited with his son and Jane. So why, he wondered, was there no elation?

He went downstairs and made a coffee, careful to choose the decaffeinated beans. In the drawing room, the shutters were open and there was enough light for him to see what he was doing. The Polaroids were still there, entombed in their book of verse. He looked again at the splayed legs of the head-butter’s girlfriend, thinking of Maude.

He had always had a temper. A short fuse, his mother had called it—said it twice to the magistrate. She had been wearing a black wool suit from As Good As New, a genteel second-hand shop just off Elyston Street. It was July and nearly ninety degrees and most of the people there were in cotton and linen. He was ashamed of her red face and damp hair. He knew she had bought the suit to impress the court. As if the magistrate would not know, just by looking at her, that tomorrow she would be mooching around in a cotton shift with bra straps slipping down her fat, mottled arms. Colin did not dislike his mother; he just couldn’t stand the sight of her. Even as a young boy he had rejected her taste. He would not wear the T-shirts she bought with their Disney tack and patterns and would hold out for solid colors. He had grown up sleek and stark and full of scorn.

In court that day, she had spoken of her son’s violence as though it were dandruff, unattractive but passing. The magistrates had weighed her care-worn loyalty against the boy’s record and sentenced him to nine months at a youth correction center near Croydon.

He had spent his sixteenth birthday there. Joe the warden and his wife had laid out a few bowls of crisps and a birthday cake on the table tennis table. He remembered the cake, a shop-bought Victoria sponge with sixteen previously owned candles ringed around the edge. Some of the candles were so stunted, it was unlikely that the flames would last long enough for Colin to draw breath. He did not even try. Before Joe could light the blackened wicks, Colin had fled to his room.

Within a week he had started cutting his arms. He had managed to hide it from them for a couple of months, but one day in the washroom, Joe had come in unexpectedly and seen the fine tracery of scars on Colin’s arms. There had been a few sessions with the regional psychiatrist and they had decided to send him home three months early. The cutting had stopped as soon as he was back in London. His mother had wanted him to add to his three O-levels, but all he wanted was work and money. He was tall and strong for his age and had been taken on as “the boy” by a scaffolding company. The work was good—it paid well and he liked being up high, looking down on people. He lived with his mother in her council flat off Ebury Street, casually slapping her whenever the mood took him.

He heard the bleep of a monitor; they must be checking his blood pressure. He was conscious that his left arm was raised high, in some kind of a sling. He looked up and saw that he was on a drip as well. He was surprised. All this for a broken
arm? Come summer, he would have to go through airport security with two steel plates in his arm. Can’t put them in a plastic tray, can you? Not that he had any cash for a holiday—he would not be back on the scaffolding for a while, if ever. Not much call for a bloke with a weak arm. Shouldn’t have lost it with Big Dave; not a floor up, that’s for certain.

He frowned at the memory of his fall and the scuffle that had preceded it. A brawl later denied by both men to a succession of cynical listeners: the boss, the union official, a bored policeman.

There was the click of high heels in the corridor. He relaxed. That will be Eileen, maybe she will have some good news. As the drugs claimed him once more he comforted himself: he had seen the way men looked at her body, there was money in that sort of look. Drifting off, he wondered what the old perv with the Mercedes had thought of the photos.

The next day they had him up early.

“Your girlfriend looks nice.” Marlene, the Irish nurse, was getting him ready to go down for his X-rays.

“She’s nice enough.”

“Oh, I can see you’re a sweet talker.”

They showed him the X-rays. He had snapped both the bones in his left forearm. Now the breaks were straddled by two steel plates, the screws clearly visible. The surgeon was pleased. They had been clean breaks. He did not anticipate any problems. When the swelling subsided they would put on the plaster cast, which he would need to wear for six weeks.

Back in the ward, he asked for more painkillers and slept. When he awoke, the afternoon had gone and Eileen was sitting by his bed. She had brought grapes.

“Very original.”

“They’re seedless. I thought they’re easier to eat.”

“I’ve still got one hand—and I can still spit.”

“Sorry.”

Careful, keep it down, keep it down; what did the shrink at the remand home say? Count to ten and think of something pleasant. Jesus, seven years training to come up with that. Don’t upset the girl, though. Go easy.

“I’m sorry. It’s the pain.”

Look at her, eyes brimming over.

“Come back tomorrow, I’ll be better then. Sorry, and all that.”

He closed his eyes and heard the rustle of paper as she put the grapes on the locker. Did she say goodbye? Next day, he could not remember.

Mrs. Abraham had her routines. On Mondays, she did the washing and ironing. She liked to come in about a quarter to nine, get the machines going, and then sit at the kitchen table with her
Daily Mail
and a coffee until a beep from the laundry room told her that the first wash was ready. She looked forward to this leisurely prelude to the working week. Monday was the only day that she did not read her newspaper on the bus. She had built a life of carefully contrived small treats and she understood the value of postponed pleasure.

When she saw Henry at the kitchen table, still in his dressing gown—a cup of steaming coffee at his right hand and the
Times
laid out before him—she had not bothered to disguise her irritation.

“What are you doing here?”

“Good morning, Mrs. Abraham.”

Henry had been tempted to mention that it was
his
house and that he even had the right to breakfast at his own table, but caution prevailed. He sensed that his unexpected presence had ruined Mrs. Abraham’s morning. A man of fixed routines
himself, he was respectful of the agendas of others. Besides, she was very good at ironing his shirts, savvy enough to know that one ironed
away
from the collar points. Such expertise was not to be jeopardized in this day and age.

“It’s just a one-off. Sorry. Business as usual tomorrow.”

The following morning he arrived at the brasserie five minutes before it opened. Peering in, he could see waiters standing in the shadows. He tried to identify Maude, but the figures were indistinct, only their white aprons detectable in the gloom. He had a premonition that she had left, that he would never see her again. He knew that he could find his way to her flat, but he would not try. If she had moved on, it was a clear sign that she did not want to see him and he would not go where he was not wanted.

“Is Maude in today?”

He had tried to make the question seem casual, planning his movements in advance. He saw himself as in a movie, a cup of coffee held halfway to his lips—a smiling, urbane man pausing to ask the kind of polite question you would ask—no more than a regular customer inquiring after a familiar waiter, small talk as you settled the bill.

“She doesn’t work here anymore. She phoned in yesterday.”

“Oh.” He felt his stomach lurch, but took a sip of coffee to show that the news was inconsequential. “I hope she’s gone on to something exciting.”

“I doubt it.”

He left a tip, larger than usual. On the way out, he saw the head-butter’s girlfriend sitting alone at a window table. He
looked away, but not before their eyes had met. He was not sure, but he thought she had smiled at him.

Out on the street, a crowd was emerging from the underground. People with fast walks and destinations. He was caught in their flow until the traffic lights at Lower Sloane Street halted the tide and he was able to peel away into the square. He walked to the fountain. The pond had been drained for the winter, but there had been enough rain to coat the bottom with a soupy mix of leaves, fag ends, paper bags, and God knows what else.

As he watched, a police car bullied its way round the square, its siren screaming. The morning stretched out in front of him. He decided to walk around until the bookshops opened. There, at least, he would find diversion, if not solace.

Crossing the Kings Road at the junction with Cadogan Gardens he heard the sound of men shouting. A small crowd had gathered and he joined them. A van driver, young and large, was exchanging obscenities with a taxi driver, small and old. Both men were out of their vehicles, squaring up in the middle of the road—traffic building up behind them, horns blaring.

“You don’t park on zigzags, you cunt—you fucking idiot.”

“Why don’t you just piss off?”

As Henry watched, the slanging turned to wrestling, the bigger man holding the cab driver in a headlock, and all the while screaming at him, “You don’t park on zigzags, you fucking arsehole.” He was jerking the smaller man up and down and the taxi driver, short of breath, had stopped answering back.

Henry looked at the people around him. Most of the men were smiling and quite a few of the women, too. Just imagine the hilarity if the big chap managed to break the small man’s neck! What a laugh that would be! Henry pushed through the crowd.

It had been surprisingly easy to part the two men. He had simply walked up to them and said, “Calm down, or you’ll get yourselves into trouble.”

The van driver had backed off and Henry had shepherded the older man back into his taxi.

“I wasn’t parked on the bloody zigzag, I was letting someone off.”

The fire had gone from his belly and he was no longer the tiger of five minutes ago. He sounded worn and querulous. Henry closed the taxi’s door.

“Just go. It’s not worth it.”

The fun over, the gawpers and the grinners had gone on their way, but Henry had stood there, elated. There is always pleasure in taking responsibility when others shirk it, and the incident had reminded Henry of his days at the company. He had felt in charge. Sheer vanity, of course, but he was reassured to know that he could still act decisively when needed.

Cheered by this knowledge, he abandoned his trip to the bookshop and made for home. On the way, he made his second decisive move of the day. He stopped at a travel agency and bought a ticket to Miami, for a flight leaving in three days’ time. He had decided to bring forward his trip to Florida. He would forget Maude by remembering Nessa.

The Ritz-Carlton in Palm Beach is proud of the paintings on its walls. Guests are encouraged to take a conducted tour of the rooms and corridors, though in fact, most of the good paintings (if you like liberally varnished nineteenth-century landscapes) are to be found just off the lobby in the ground floor lounge and bar.

It is here that people take afternoon tea and meet for pre-dinner drinks. In the evening there is a piano player and if you are back late from a concert it is a good place to snack on spring rolls, filet mignon, or a sandwich. You will always find somewhere to sit—that is, from Monday to Friday.

At the weekends, it is standing room only. The hotel books a dance band, four musicians and a singer—old hands, who are rarely stumped by a request. Most of the people who fill the plump chairs and sofas at the dance floor’s edge are not guests, but local residents. The few tourists lured onto the floor by the familiar strains of Gershwin and Porter are easily identified by their lack of finery. The locals make an effort, the men in slacks and jackets, the women dressed for a party in chiffon and satin. The results are plucky rather
than impressive. Designer gowns from a former era, lovingly preserved in polyethylene, hang uneasily on bodies that have had no such luck. Some of the couples have obviously danced in competitions in the past and for them the dance floor remains an arena. In the confined space they somehow manage to impose themselves, gamely rerunning their ballroom triumphs.