Stars and Bars Read online

He stepped into the shower. For getting on for thirty years he’d never considered his body. It did its job; it looked fair enough; its distribution of muscle and hair was unexceptionable. But now it was saying ‘hold on a moment’, ‘hang about, friend’. It was getting tired of staying in shape, it was getting clapped out, the first signs of four decades of wear and tear were manifesting themselves. It was getting old.

  He plunged his head beneath the powerful jet of the shower, trying to forget. Even in the crummiest motel you got a decent shower. He remembered the shower he had had installed in his London flat. It had a weak, two-inch spread. It pattered feebly on one shoulder when you stood beneath it; it took five minutes to dampen your hair. Getting the temperature right required meticulous hairfine adjustments of the taps—you needed the touch of a safe-cracker.

  After he had dried himself he wondered what to do about getting into bed. He normally slept naked but realized that, tonight, probity demanded he make a change. He pulled on his underpants and stepped quietly into the bedroom.

  Bryant sat up in bed smoking, her bedside lamp on. She was wearing pale blue cotton pyjamas, monogrammed ‘B. W: Henderson stood there, suddenly conscious of the crammed codpiece of his Y-fronts, his hairless legs, his fat nipples. He slid into his bed between the crackling nylon sheets.

  ‘You shouldn’t smoke in bed, you know,’ he grumbled. ‘With the static in this place we could be vaporized in a white flash.’

  Bryant ignored him.

  ‘And you left the bathroom in a mess.’

  ‘Mom wants you to call her, I phoned while you were out.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’ He felt pleased. He prodded New York. As he was waiting for Melissa to answer, Bryant leant forward to stub out her cigarette. As she stretched for the ashtray he got a clear view down the front of her pyjama top. Her small firm breasts with small, odd, domed nipples. He felt embarrassment and shock clog his throat.

  Melissa answered.

  ‘Melissa? It’s Henderson.’ His mind skittered about. My God, he thought, my hands are shaking.

  ‘Henderson, darling, thank you. It’s so kind of you. I really want you to know that I appreciate it, darling. I really do.’

  ‘Don’t mention it.’ So American: all this sincere gratitude for a returned call.

  ‘Are you sure it’s not inconvenient?’

  ‘No, no. Not at all. Quite the opposite.’

  ‘God, you are wonderful. I’d forgotten. You lovely man, you. There aren’t many men who’d do this, I know. I want you back here quickly.’

  Doubt began to seep through his body.

  ‘Well, it’s not much—’

  ‘Modesty. Come on, Mr Englishman. I love it! No, darling, I just wanted to tell you myself that I think it’s so kind of you to ask her. And you know it’ll be interesting for her too: see you at work, learn about—’

  His scalp crawled with a horrible sick alarm as he suddenly realized what she was talking about. Melissa nattered on about how she’d phoned Grandma Wax and explained the new plans. Henderson turned and looked at Bryant. She had snuggled down in her bed and was smiling innocently at him. He felt a rush of loathing for this premature adult as he muttered assurances into the phone. He said goodbye.

  ‘That is one of the most scheming, most disgraceful acts of…lying I have ever witnessed,’ he began, his voice shaking with rage.

  ‘God, Henderson, I won’t get in the way.’

  ‘I don’t care, it’s pure bloody selfishness.’

  ‘What’s so selfish? Why can’t I come? I won’t get in the way. You’re the selfish one. You don’t want me to come. Why not? What’s so wrong with me being there?’ Her tone was injured, a wronged child’s voice full of that hectoring self-righteousness which appears when children know they’ve got an adult on the run.

  He ranted on for a while, but he knew it was too late now. What was worse, he knew she knew.

  ‘I can’t understand why you’re so fired up,’ she said with arch, false innocence. ‘Look how pleased Mom was. Don’t you think that’s nice?’

  She was right, but he didn’t admit it. Perhaps it was a sign: that he should concentrate on Melissa, forget Irene…

  He lay awake for hours, itchy between the nylon sheets of the Scaggsville Motor Hotel. He ran through the burgeoning options that had suddenly appeared in his life. The road ahead had seemed so straight and sure; now he faced a fan of avenues. He fretfully pondered the alternatives as the cold drinks dispenser shuddered dismally outside his door and the ice-machine’s thin lonely rattle punctuated the very slow progress of the night.

  Chapter Three

  Interstate 85 carried them safely through the Carolinas. The weather had grown steadily warmer as they drove south. Now, in Georgia, the late-afternoon sun burned down from a clear blue sky and Henderson switched on the air conditioning in the car. They motored along, windows up, in a chill cell. Outside the country was—to his eyes—surprisingly, but monotonously, wooded, with a tough-looking breed of average-sized pine predominant. The highway cut straight through this consistent greenery, the only variation coming with the thin towering signs of the gas stations, roadside motels and supermarkets at junctions and intersections. Holiday Inn, Omlette Shoppe, Cowboy Barbeque, Bi-Lo, Starvin’ Marvin’, Food Giant, Steak and Ale, Wife-Saver. These signs, a hundred feet high, like enormous cocktail stirrers, loomed over the forest.

  On the drive south from Skaggsville Henderson had remained terse, resolutely maintaining his anger. But Bryant seemed not to care: indeed, she was almost cheerful, singing along or beating out a rhythm to the songs—now exclusively country and western—that came over the radio. Henderson had traversed every wave band in fruitless search for music that wasn’t gravid with sentiment, but in vain. The only alternatives were religious stations offering prayer-ins, waterproof bibles (‘for pool-side reading’) or ghastly homilies.

  ‘Don’t you like country and western?’ Bryant asked.

  ‘I loathe it.’

  ‘I like it. It’s sort of…true.’

  ‘My God,’ Henderson said, ‘if that’s your version of ‘true’ then I feel sorry for you.’

  ‘OK. So what’s not true about them?’ Bryant persisted.

  ‘Look, I don’t want to talk about it,’ Henderson said. ‘It’s bad enough having to listen to that…that pap, without having to indulge in close reading of the lyrics.’

  Bryant shrugged, and found a new station. Henderson looked at her thin arm with its shine of blond hairs as she twiddled the dial. He felt edgy and uncomfortable beside her now. He was almost sure, moreover, that she wasn’t wearing a bra. He wished devoutly that he hadn’t caught a glimpse of her breasts last night. It was curious the changes it had wrought in his view of her: no longer a petulant minx whom, for the sake of her mother, he had to tolerate, the ‘glimpse’ had introduced new ingredients into her personality—femininity, nubility…sex.

  They saw Atlanta from a long way off, the towers of its downtown district silhouetted against the sinking sun, a few small, bruise-coloured clouds dawdling above the city.

  ‘We’d better phone now, I suppose,’ Henderson said.

  ‘Do you think it’s far away?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Luxora Beach.’

  ‘Well, it’s one hell of a drive to a coast, that’s for sure.’ The same thought had occurred to him earlier.

  ‘Maybe it’s on a lake.’ She was looking at a road map. ‘There are a lot of lakes around here.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  They pulled off the freeway at the next junction. Henderson found a phone booth while Bryant went in search of a ‘comfort station’, whatever that was.

  He tapped out the number Beeby had given him. It rang for a very long time and he was just about to hang up when a woman answered.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘May I speak to—with—Mr Loomis Gage.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Loomis Gage. May I speak—’

  ‘What?’

&nb
sp; Jesus Christ. ‘Loo-mis. Gage.’

  He heard her shout someone’s name. Through the phone came a faint noise of a television set, then a man’s voice.

  ‘Yeah? Who is it?’

  ‘Mr Gage? Mr Loomis Gage?’

  ‘No. Who are you?’

  ‘My name is Dores. From Mulholland, Melhuish—New York. I’d like to speak to Mr Loomis Gage.’

  He had to repeat this three times; the man seemed to be some sort of imbecile.

  ‘Oh yeah.’ Then suspiciously, ‘Oh yeah… Don’t hang up.’

  Henderson fed more money into the phone. The man came back.

  ‘You was expected this morning.’

  ‘There must be some mistake.’

  ‘Beckman’s been waiting in Atlanta all day.’

  ‘I couldn’t have got here any sooner, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Well, he’ll be at the corner of Peachtree Street and Edgewood on the hour. Can you make it for six?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘He’ll look after you.’

  This is preposterous, Henderson thought. ‘What does he look like?’

  ‘Thin, kinda long fair hair.’

  The man hung up.

  Henderson realized his palms were sweating. He suddenly felt a bit fearful. The set up was so weird; mad, even. He thought of his usual valuation trips: a pleasant weekend in some sumptuous house; civilized, cultured talk about art. Christ only knew what Beeby had landed him in. He began to wish that he’d let Ian Toothe come in his place; it certainly would have saved him a lot of problems.

  Bryant returned from her comfort station.

  ‘So what happens?’ she asked.

  ‘We’ve got to meet a man called Beckman at a street corner in Atlanta.’

  ‘Sounds good.’ Her eyes widened. ‘What then?’

  ‘I’m not absolutely sure.’

  They drove down the extreme length of Peachtree Street. Atlanta seemed halfway through some sort of massive redevelopment programme: crumbling facades on old buildings gave way to empty brick-strewn lots, then some spanking new skyscraper surged up from a multi-level piazza with thickets of trees and gurgling fountains and fishponds. As they got near the city centre the buildings grew higher and more impressive: vast circular hotels, mirror glass cliffs dominating small landscaped parks and squares.

  The streets seemed oddly quiet, in strong contrast to New York at this hour. They were a little early for their rendezvous, only three blacks lounged at the corner of Peachtree and Edgewood, so they parked the car and wandered around for a while. They went into a concrete cave and took an escalator deep down into the earth. At the bottom they emerged into the immaculate concourse of a vast subway station, clean, shiny and vacant. A couple of ticket collectors looked curiously at them.

  ‘Where is everybody?’ Bryant whispered. ‘It’s like being in the future.’

  They went back up. A very thin white man with straggling long blond hair twitched and shimmied on the corner, looking edgily at the blacks.

  ‘Mr Be’ckman?’ Henderson said.

  The man whirled round in alarm, arm raised as if to ward off a blow. Henderson leapt back.

  ‘At fuckin’ last,’ the man said. ‘I’ve been waiting here six fuckin’ hours.’

  ‘I explained—’

  ‘You got a car?’ He had a thin, lined face. A narrow palate with soft overcrowded teeth.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m in that pickup.’ He pointed to a blue pickup with large fat wheels and gleaming chrome. ‘Follow me.’

  Henderson followed the pickup through Atlanta’s suburbs. Soon they were on another freeway. He saw signs for Anniston and Birmingham. They were driving west. He wondered if they were going to Alabama. He suddenly wished he were back in his apartment in New York, or strolling down to the Queensboro gym for a sabre bout with Teagarden. Bryant stared fixedly at the pickup ahead.

  ‘Wow, is that guy weird. Did you see his eyes?’

  ‘I wasn’t looking at his eyes. Did you see his teeth?’

  ‘He kept blinking all the time, like he had grit in them.’

  They drove west for an hour or so, then turned off at a town called Villa Rica. From there they followed a succession of two-lane country roads. It grew darker. Henderson switched on his headlights. They drove through tiny townships—Draketown, Felton. Bryant pored over the map.

  ‘Any idea where we are?’ Henderson asked.

  ‘No. I’m kinda lost.’

  ‘Are we in Alabama or Georgia?’

  ‘What difference does it make?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  They drove on. Bryant switched on the radio.

  ‘…terminally ill. And he said to me, ‘Father, what will heaven be like?’

  ‘The voice was deep and mellifluous.

  ‘Oh no, ’ Bryant said disgustedly, reaching out.

  ‘Leave it on a second,’ Henderson said, horrified.

  ‘…and I could not answer the man, dear friends, that…terminally ill man. What is heaven like? I had no reply in his hour of need. Just then my dog, Patch, who I had left in the car outside, somehow managed to get out and came running into this man’s house to look for me. I heard him scratch on the door. I opened it and let him in. And then, friends, I knew. So I said to this…terminally ill man, ‘Sir,’ I said, ‘heaven is like this room. Patch has never been in this house before but he entered this room with absolute trust and confidence and without fear. Why? Because he knew that I, his master, was inside. So you too may go to the Lord and scratch on the door of heaven with trust and confidence and no fear. We do not know what is in the ‘room’ of heaven, but we know that God is there and we need have no fear of joining him inside. Good night everybody. Tune in next week on W.N.B.K. in Tallapoosa for the ‘Sunday Sermonette’. This is the Reverend T.J. Cardew. God bless you all. Amen.’

  ‘Good grief,’ Henderson said.

  ‘Can we find some music? This is boring.’

  Eventually, after another half-hour’s driving they saw a sign. ‘Welcome to Luxora Beach.’ Then another: ‘Lions Club of Luxora Beach welcomes you.’ Finally: ‘Luxora Beach city limit. Pop. 1079.’

  By now it was quite dark. They drove by single storey wooden houses on either side of the road, then into an area of street lighting. It revealed a narrow main street flanked on one side by a railway line. Beyond the railway line was a wide tarmacked area fronting a shabby maH of flat-fronted, flat-roofed stores. Henderson read ‘Luxora Beach Drugs’ above a dark window. All the windows were dark except for one bar. The red neon bow tie of a Budweiser sign and the blue rosette of the Pabst logo set pretty highlights on the matt dusty cars parked outside.

  Beckman’s pickup turned and bumped across the railway line. Henderson followed suit.

  ‘Wrong side of the tracks,’ he said with a nervous chuckle.

  They left the metalled road and drove along a winding dirt lane with—from what he could see through the dust Beckman’s wheels threw up—scrubby undergrowth on either side.

  Presently they passed through rickety wooden gates and beneath a wrought iron arch with ‘The Gage Mansion’ written on it in dirty white scrollwork. In front of them in the faint moonlight, Henderson could make out the bulk of a rather large house ahead. The drive swept them round in a generous semi-circle. The headlights picked out small groups of tall trees which seemed strategically placed to aid some landscaped composition. Lights shone from a few windows.

  The pickup stopped. Henderson stopped. He looked at Bryant who returned his nonplussed stare. For the briefest of moments they seemed allies. He stepped out of the car. In front of the house was an immense double-wide mobile home made of ribbed aluminium and some sort of plastic wood veneer. Powerlines hung between it and the house. Looking back Henderson saw that the drive formed a perfect circle. He moved away from the car in an effort to gain some better conception of the architecture but it was too dark. It was, he thought anyway, of little consequence. Even the finest building would ha
ve been vitiated by the hideous adjacency of the mobile home. He wondered why it was there.

  ‘He’s inside,’ Beckman shouted from the pickup and drove off round the drive and back out of the gates again.

  Inside the house or the trailer, Henderson asked himself? He removed their cases from the car.

  Bryant was peering in a curtained porthole punched through the ribbed aluminium.

  ‘There’s people inside,’ she said.

  There was a call from the house. ‘Mr Melhuish, is that you?’

  ‘Oh God,’ Henderson said weakly. ‘Let’s go.’

  He and Bryant climbed up a dozen or so steps to a wide wooden verandah which appeared to circle the house. A small man stood outside double front doors.

  ‘Mr Melhuish,’ he said, and shook Henderson’s hand vigorously. ‘A pleasure to meet you, a real pleasure. I’m Loomis Gage.’

  ‘My name is Dores,’ Henderson said apologetically. ‘Didn’t Mr Beeby explain I was to come?’

  The small man laughed cheerfully.

  ‘Dores, Melhuish. Who gives a rat’s rump? It’s all the same to me. Come on in.’

  They stepped through the doors into the hall to be greeted by a considerable blare of noise. From somewhere above them came the thump and twang of rock music, and from a room on the right a television boomed.

  ‘This is my stepdaughter!’ Henderson said, obliged to raise his voice. ‘Bryant Wax! Stepdaughter to be, that is!’

  Bryant looked around her with mild curiosity. ‘Hi,’ she said.

  ‘You do business with your family?’ Gage shouted back.

  ‘Well…!’

  ‘I like that!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said, I like that!’

  ‘Rarely!’

  ‘Excuse me one moment!’ Gage took some steps up the stairs.

  ‘TURN THAT DAMN MUSIC DOWN!’ he roared.

  He paused, ear cocked. The volume was reduced. He descended and opened the door of the room that contained the TV. It was quite dark, apart from the bright colours on the screen. Gage turned the noise off but left the picture flickering. He switched some lights on.

  ‘That’s better,’ he said. Loomis Gage was small and plump, and clearly very old, though he seemed sprightly enough. His face had its full quota of tucks and dewlaps and his eyes were watery. Yet he had a shock of pure white hair, as dense and springy as a teenager’s, which seemed at odds with his advancing years. His nose was noticeably snub too, Henderson saw, and thought it a curiously indecent feature on a man as venerable as this. Gage wore a short-sleeved yellow sports shirt and khaki trousers. His neat pot belly pushed against an engraved silver buckle the size of a side plate.