Figures of Fear: An anthology (22 page)

His mother said, ‘How long are you staying for?’

He gave her a quick, tight smile. ‘I don’t know … it depends on a couple of business deals.’

She held his eye for a moment and there was something in the way she looked at him that told him she suspected he wasn’t entirely telling the truth. His mother had always known when he was lying. Either that, or he always felt guilty when he lied to her, and it showed.

He hefted his bag out of the car and carried it through to the small room at the back. It was depressingly familiar, although it had a new green carpet and new curtains with green and white convolvulus flowers on them. His high-school football trophies were still arranged on top of the bureau, and there was a large photograph of him at the age of eleven, clutching a shaggy red dog. He sat down on the bed and covered his face with his hands. Eleven years of work. Eleven years of talking and travelling and staying up till two or three in the morning. All of it gone, all of it – and nothing to show for it but a single suitcase and twenty-three CFA francs – not convertible into dollars, and not worth anything even if they were.

His father came in with a can of Coors. ‘Here – I’ll bet you can’t get this in Libreville.’

‘No, we get French beer mainly. Or there’s the local brew. OK for cleaning drains.’

He opened up the suitcase. Two pairs of pants, one crumpled linen coat, a pair of brown leather sandals, socks and shorts. His father said, ‘You’re travelling extra-light. The last time you came, you had so many cases I though that Madonna was visiting.’

‘Well … I wasn’t given too much notice.’

He took the witch-compass out of the side pocket in his suitcase and put it next to his football cups.

‘What the two-toned tonkert is that?’ asked his father.

‘It’s kind of a good-luck charm.’

‘Oh, yeah?’ His father picked it up and shook it. ‘Looks like a giant sheep dropping to me.’

Paul hung his clothes up in the closet.

‘You’re quiet,’ said his father. ‘Everything’s OK, isn’t it?’

‘Sure, sure. Everything’s OK.’

His father laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘I’ll tell you who else is around. You remember that Katie Sayward you used to like so much? Her marriage broke up, so she’s back here with her aunt, to get over it.’

Paul said, ‘What? I didn’t even know she was married.’

‘Yeah. She married some actor she met in New York. Real good-looking guy.
Too
good-looking, if you know what I mean. I met him once when she came up to Sherman to see her aunt. So far as I know, he had an affair with some girl in the chorus-line and Katie was totally devastated. If you do see her, I wouldn’t mention it if I were you. Not unless she brings it up first.’

Paul went to the window and pressed his forehead against the cold glass. Outside, the yard sloped steeply uphill towards a thicket of dry brown bracken. Katie Sayward. He had always adored Katie Sayward, even when he was in grade school. Katie Sayward, with her skinny ankles and her skinny wrists and her shining brown hair that swung whenever she turned her head. Even when she was younger, her lips always looked as if she had just finished kissing someone. She had grown into a beautiful young woman, with a head-turning figure. Paul had only plucked up the courage once to ask her for a date. He could remember it even today – walking into the home room in front of all the other girls, and saying, ‘Katie, how about you and me going out for a burger tonight?’ Katie had clamped her hand over mouth, and widened her eyes, and then she had burst out laughing. The memory of it still made him feel hot and uncomfortable.

So Katie Sayward had married. Well, of course she had married, a lovely girl like that. It was just that he hadn’t wanted to hear about it. And worse than that, her husband had cheated on her. How could he have cheated on Katie Sayward, when she was the perfect, perfect girl?

His mother came into the room. ‘You’re sure you don’t want anything to eat? I could make you a bologna sandwich. I don’t suppose you get much bologna in Gabon.’

‘I’m fine, Mom. Honestly. Let me grab a few zees, that’s all.’

‘OK,’ said his father, giving him another affectionate clap on the shoulder. ‘I’ll wake you up in time for dinner.’

Randolph’s Restaurant was decorated in the style of an old colonial inn, with wheelback chairs and softly shaded lamps on the tables and antique warming pans hanging on the walls. They sat right in the middle of the restaurant, and Paul’s father kept turning around in his chair and calling out to people he knew.

‘Dick! Janice! Paul’s back from darkest Africa! Sure, doing real good, aren’t you, Paul? Business is booming! Counting on buying himself a new Porsche, top-of-the-range!’

Paul glanced at his mother. She was still smiling, but he definitely had the feeling that she knew something wasn’t quite right.

His father ordered two large martinis to start, and a mimosa for his mother. Then he opened up the oversized leatherbound menu and said, ‘OK! Let’s push the boat out!’

He ordered oysters and caviar with sour cream and blinis. He ordered steak and lobster and fresh chargrilled tuna. They drank Roederer champagne with the hors d’oeuvres and Pauillac with the entrées, $97.50 a bottle.

Paul’s father did most of the talking. Paul sat with his head lowered, chewing his way unenthusiastically through his meal. He couldn’t even taste the difference between the steak and the lobster, and he left his beans and broccoli untouched.

‘You must be feeling jet-lagged,’ said his mother, laying her hand on top of his.

‘Yes … kind of. I’ll be OK tomorrow.’

The pianist on the opposite side of the room was playing a slow bluesy version of ‘Buddy, Can You Spare A Dime?’ and he almost felt like standing up and walking out.

‘You know something?’ said his father, with his mouth full, and a shred of lobster dangling from his lip. ‘I’m so proud of you, Paul, I could stand right up in this restaurant and shout it out loud. My only son, started from humble beginnings, but had the guts to go to Africa all on his own and make himself a hundred million.’

‘Well, I’m not so sure about the hundred million,’ said Paul.

‘You mark my words – if you haven’t made a hundred million yet, you sure will soon! That’s what you’re made of! That’s why I’m so proud of you!’

They finished the meal with Irish coffees in the cocktail lounge. Paul’s father grew more and more talkative and when he started to tell stories about his high-school days, losing his shorts in the swimming pool and falling into the rhododendron bushes, Paul asked for the check.

‘That’s real generous of you, Paul.’ His father beamed. Then he turned to his mother and said, ‘How many people have a wealthy young son who can take his folks out for a night like this?’

Paul opened the leather folder with the check inside. It was $378.69, gratuity at your discretion. Suddenly he couldn’t hear the piano music any more.

‘How is it?’ asked his father. ‘National debt of Gabon, I’ll bet.’

‘Something like that,’ said Paul, numbly, and reached into his coat with fingers that felt as if they were frostbitten. He took out his wallet and opened it, while his mother watched him silently and his father chatted with the cocktail waitress.

‘In Gabon, you understand, they respect Americans. They trust them. Wouldn’t surprise me at all if Paul ends up running a big mining corporation over there.’

Paul said, ‘Shit.’

‘What? What is it?’

‘All the money I changed … I left it back in my suitcase.’

‘You can use your card, can’t you?’

‘No, no, I can’t. It’s only for use in Africa.’

‘But that’s an American Express card. That’s good anywhere.’

‘Not this one, no. I have a special deal. They bill me in CFA francs, so that I save myself twelve-and-a-half per cent handling charges.’

Paul’s father pulled a face. ‘Don’t you have Visa, or MasterCard?’

‘Left them back in my suitcase, too. Stupid of me. Mom’s right. I must be jet-lagged.’

‘Looks like we’re going to have to wash the dishes,’ said his father.

‘I’ll tell you what I can do,’ Paul volunteered. ‘I can come back early tomorrow, soon as you open, and pay you then. How’s that? I can leave my watch if you like.’

‘Oh, that’s OK,’ smiled the waitress. ‘I think we can trust you, don’t you? And what is it they say in those gangster movies? We know where you live.’

They all laughed and Paul tucked his wallet back in his coat and said, ‘Thanks.’ Shit. Where was he going to raise more than four hundred dollars by lunchtime tomorrow? He could pawn his watch, he supposed. It was a nine hundred dollar Baume & Mercier that had been given to him by the sales director of a French copper company. His ten thousand dollar Rolex had long gone, in legal fees. He just hoped that Robard’s jewellers was still in business.

His mother took his arm as they left the restaurant and walked across the parking lot. It was a cold, dry night.

‘Winter’s coming early this year,’ said his mother. His father was weaving ahead of them, singing erratic lines from ‘Buddy Can You Spare A Dime?’ ‘Once I was a bigshot … now I’m broke.’

‘Well, we don’t get much of a winter in Libreville.’

‘Is everything all right, Paul?’

‘Sure. What do you mean? Everything’s great.’

‘I don’t know. You look – I’m not quite sure what the word is.
Haunted
, I guess.’

‘Haunted?’ He laughed. ‘You make me sound like Hill House.’

‘But everything’s OK? The business? You’re not sick, are you?’

‘I got over the dengue months ago.’

‘You will tell me, though, if anything’s wrong?’

He gave her a kiss and nodded, and then he hurried her along a little faster, so that they would catch up with his father. ‘Dad! Dad! Come on, Dad, there’s no way that I’m going to let you drive!’

That night he lay in bed listening to the leaves whispering in the yard outside. He felt infinitely tired, but he couldn’t even close his eyes. The moonlight fell across the wall as white as a bone.

He ought to tell his parents that he was bankrupt. He ought to tell them that he was never going back to Gabon, couldn’t go back. He knew his father would be crushed, but how much longer could he keep up this pretence? Yet he felt that if he told his parents, he would reduce himself to the level of a hopeless alcoholic, finally admitting that he couldn’t summon up the willpower to quit on his own.

His parents’ admiration was all he had left.

The digital clock beside the bed told him it was 3.57. It clicked on to 3.58 – and it was then that he heard a soft shaking noise, like dry rice in a colander.

He raised his head from the pillow. It must have been the leaves, skittering in the wind. But as he lowered his head he heard it again, much sharper this time.
Shikk – shikk – shikk!
And again, even louder.
Shikk – shikk – shikk!

He swung his legs out of bed and walked across to the bureau. There, amongst his football trophies, lay the black smooth shape of the witch-compass. It was shivering, very slightly, and as it shivered, the beads or seeds inside it set up that
shikk – shikk – shikk!
sound.

Cautiously, he picked it up. It felt as pleasant to hold as it always did; yet tonight it seemed to have life in it. It vibrated, and shook again. He pointed it towards the window. It stopped vibrating, and the
shikk
sound stopped, too. He pointed it toward the closet. It vibrated again, but only softly. Next he pointed it towards the door. It gave a brisk shiver and almost jumped out of his hand.

It’s guiding me
, Paul thought.
It’s guiding me to what I want.

He tested it again, pointing it back at the window, back at the closet, back at the door. As soon as he pointed it towards the door, it became more and more excited.

Supposing it’s showing me how to find some money. That’s what I need more than anything.

Hurriedly, he pulled on his shirt and his pants and his shoes. Then, breathing hard, he eased open his bedroom door and stepped into the darkened hallway. He could hear his father snoring like a beached whale, and the clock ticking loudly on the wall. He pointed the witch-compass north, south, east and west. It shook most vigorously when he pointed it towards the front door. It was guiding him out of the house.

He walked as quietly as he could across the polished oak floor. He lifted a nylon windbreaker down from the pegs by the door. Then he eased open the chains, drew back the bolts and went out into the cold, windy night.

The witch-compass led him down the front steps and down the narrow, winding road that led to the main highway between New Milford and New Preston. Although it was only four in the morning, the sky was strangely light, as if a UFO had landed behind the trees. Paul’s footsteps scrunched through the leaves at the side of the road and his father’s windbreaker made a loud rustling noise. It smelled of his father’s pipe-smoke, and there was a plastic lighter in the pocket.

And all the time, the witch-compass rattled in his hand with ever-increasing eagerness.

He had just reached the hairpin bend that would take him down to the highway, when he heard a car coming, from quite a long way off, but coming fast. He began to hurry around the bend and down the steeply sloping road, and as he did so he glimpsed headlights from the direction of New Milford. It looked as if it were travelling at more than seventy miles an hour.

He hadn’t even reached the highway when he heard a sickening bang and a shrieking of tyres, and then a sound like an entire junkyard dropping out of the sky. Wheels, fenders, mufflers, windows, crunching and screeching and smashing. Then complete silence, which was worse.

Paul came running around the corner and saw the bloodied body of a dead deer lying in the scrub on the far side of the highway, its legs twisted at extraordinary angles, as if it were trying to ballet dance. Almost a hundred feet further up, a battered, dented Chevrolet was resting on its roof. Shattered glass glittered all over the blacktop.

‘Jesus.’ Paul started to run towards the wreck. As he came closer he saw that the driver was still in his seat, suspended upside-down in his seat belt. His deflated air bag hung in front of him, and it had obviously saved his life. He was groaning loudly and trying to wrestle himself free.