Players at the Game of People (18 page)

"I never inherited anything," he said, handing her the fresh drink.
"I . . ."
He checked. It had been so long since he talked to anyone about himself
-- so long, indeed, since he thought much about what he had once been --
the words he called to mind felt rusty and uncomfortable. Yet there was a
pressure in his head compelling him to utter them. He had lived a life of
solitude for far too long; contacts with his own kind like Irma or Bill
or Luke were at best acquaintanceships, while the meetings and matings
he enjoyed (?) beyond his window were scarcely even to be dignified by
that term.
Even so, he would not have experienced this urge to talk had his life
continued in its normal path. He was used to being punished for errors,
like the one he had committed at the Global Hotel discotheque; he could
well have become resigned to the loss of one of his rewards, had he been
able to look forward to the next with any excitement; he might even have
endured the death of Hamish, had it not been due -- or presumably due
-- to his own actions. It had been long since he experienced anger; he
had learned to regard it as dangerous, as self-defeating. Good behavior
was invariably rewarded, just as bad behavior was. It all felt logical;
it all felt
right
.
Or more exactly: it had done . . .
But like the worm i' the apple, doubts were gnawing his mind now.
He had boasted of being able to go anywhere he liked; in fact that wasn't
so. He could go anywhere he was sure of finding someone like himself
-- someone of his own kind: WiIf Burgess or Maud McConley or Dirk van
Beelden or André Bankowski or whoever. There were places in Japan and
Korea and Africa he had never ventured to, where he was not certain
of meeting strangers who spoke English. What had felt like ultimate
freedom had suddenly, appallingly and incredibly, turned into a set of
arbitrary fetters. He was at a loss to know what to make of this novel
and intolerable insight.
So he prevaricated as he resumed his chair, gazing at Barbara.
" Was your mother's name Gallon?"
"Oh, hell! If you didn't know, why would you ask? Yes, goddammit! Yes!
My grandmother hated my mother so much, as soon as she got the chance
-- as soon as that bloody flying bomb killed her -- she had my name
changed to hers. To Tupper! And I've always wished I'd found out what
the name actually means soon enough to be able to mock her with it on
her deathbed!" Venom inflamed her words; she was almost panting. "But I
lived up to it!" she concluded, and poured half her new drink down her
throat at one go.
"But if she was your father's mother -- " Godwin said, briefly puzzled.
"Second marriage" was the sullen reply. "She hated her first husband
too -- Ernie Gallon. Who got my poor dead father on her unwilling body;
whose bad seed, as she called it, led her only son to marry a whore . . .
But how the hell else was a woman to make ends meet in a slum district
on a war widow's pension?"
"Your father was killed?"
"Like a million others," she said wearily. "But a lot less gloriously.
He died in a prisoner-of-war camp. The kids I called brother and sister
can't have been his. What a bloody fool my mother was! Bringing extra kids
into the world like that!"
She briskened. "But I suppose Dora told you all that about her background.
She always does. Calls me filthy names every chance she gets, and to
everybody. Damned nearly got herself slung out of that expensive school
I sent her to, until I managed to persuade the headmistress to call
in a psychiatrist, very publicly, and get her interviewed about her
fantasies. She was quiet after that . . . But we started out talking
about you, remember?"
Behind her brittle smartness was genuine hurt. Godwin finished his own
first drink and went to make another; having used only half the salt
around it, he retained the same glass, and knew she registered the fact.
On her face could be read some such comment as "So the purse isn't
bottomless!"
But neither of them mentioned it aloud. Instead he said, somewhat to his
own surprise, looking into nowhere, "At twenty I was a hopeless drunk.
I was an orphan. I'd never held a job more than a month. I'd been jailed
over and over. I still dare not drink anywhere except in this room.
Or out there" -- waving at the window -- "which amounts to the same thing."
She pondered that, seeming to conduct a debate with herself. A few words
emerged: "Posthypnotic suggestion? Could be, I suppose . . . but no hypno
could explain what I'm going through! Ah, the hell!"
She looked him squarely in the face and her voice rose to a normal level.
"Okay, I'll take your story literally. What happened to -- rescue you?"
"I had a chance, and I grabbed it." And he was on the point of explaining
what it had been, and how it had all happened, when the words rising in
his throat threatened to choke him. He had to say something else instead,
and was inspired.
"Same as Gorse did!"
"Same as -- ?" She looked puzzled for a moment; then light dawned.
"Oh! She's decided to adopt that silly nickname they gave her at school,
has she? Well, I've always known she hates being Dora Simpkins. I must
say I never thought there was much to choose between Simpkins and Tupper,
myself, which is why I've generally stuck to the one I was used to when
it came to professional matters . . . Gorse, though! It's not what you'd
call an antidote to Simpkins, any more than Dora!"
"She changed both parts. She's called Gorse Plenty now."
" What?" On the verge of taking another swig of her drink Barbara began
to chuckle. "Oh, that's too much! Why Plenty?"
"She -- ah . . . She took advice."
"Did she? Never from me, not since she was about six! I wish I knew who
had that much influence over her. You?"
Godwin shook his head. "A friend."
"I'd certainly like to meet him. He could give me a few tips, by the sound
of it. Was he the same person who told you how to grow madly rich?" With
one hand she indicated their surroundings as she poured the rest of her
drink down with the other.
"No," said Godwin stonily.
"Do I get an introduction, since he knows her?"
"No."
"Well, the hell with you, then," she said, putting the glass aside.
"At least I have something to go on. There can't be more than one person
in London -- maybe in the world -- called Gorse Plenty. Thanks for the
drink. And the magic. Now let me out."
"I already told you," Godwin said patiently. "There was a detective
who could have found her. He found out who you were on the slimmest of
evidence. That's how I knew to call you Barbara, even though I would
have automatically called you Greer. But -- "
On the verge of rising, she sat back again very sharply, staring at him.
"What did you say?"
"I said he died today! Messily and horribly and publicly! It's probably
going to be in all tomorrow's papers. No way it could make the TV news
tonight. Much too disgusting."
"I'm not talking about that!" she exploded, folding her fingers into fists.
"You just mentioned a name!"
"You mean Greer?"
" How did you know?"
There followed a blank pause. At last Godwin said, "But when I rescued
you, that's what your mother called you. And people were calling her
Mrs. Gallon, and I remember think 'ga-
Greer
ga-
Gallon
' -- that's a
clumsy name for such a lovely child!"
"But you didn't rescue me!" she almost screamed, leaping to her feet and
standing over him with balled fists threatening. "It was someone called
Ransome and he must be old by now and you look about thirty-two and I'm
fifty next birthday and I want to know how in God's name you trespassed
inside my head and found out about Greer Gallon!"
Her composure failed her. A second later, she had to cover her eyes with
her palms and was lost in helpless sobbing.
For a while he stared at her in foolish puzzlement; then he remembered
his manners and brought her a box of tissues, dropping on one knee beside
her chair to proffer them. She gradually grew aware of his presence,
and with muttered thanks took the box and blew her nose and dabbed her
cheeks dry. Her eyes had reddened with astonishing rapidity.
"I must look like a bloody fool," she forced out. "But I haven't had a
decent night's sleep in weeks, and I can't eat properly, and -- " She had
to blow her nose a second time, and looked around for a wastebasket to
dump the used tissues in. He brought her one, not rising to his feet,
and settled encouragingly at her side with one elbow on the arm of
her chair. He wanted some sort of explanation for what had happened;
he wanted clues to her identity in his imaginary world, particularly
since no other reward had yielded contact with reality; but most of all
he wanted conversation with someone not party to his secret. That fact
amazed him, but it was inescapable.
He wanted someone's opinion of him. An outsider's.
Why he should want it was too difficult a question for him to tackle
for the moment. Instead of thinking about it, he said in a coaxing tone,
"The last thing I wanted was to make you cry! I'm terribly sorry!"
"You expect me to believe that?" -- with a return of her former defiance.
"Christ, when you've pushed all my buttons, including one I didn't think
anybody knew about -- !"
"Tell me about Greer, then," he suggested quickly.
"Oh . . . !" She finished wiping her eyes and cheeks, set the box of
tissues aside, leaned back, and reached for her drink again, not looking
at him. "Why should you have to ask? You have to know all about Greer
Gallon if you know of her existence."
"But I'd like to know how I know about her."
She glanced at him, then away, folding both hands around her glass.
"You sound as though you mean that."
"I do. I swear I do. I have no faintest notion why the name is in my
memories. Why you're in my memories. When you obviously can't be."
"But . . ." She thought for a few seconds, her eyes switching to and
from his face. "But if you're so incredibly rich -- "
"I told you: I don't pay for this!"
"Who does?"
"Nobody!"
"Now that's ridiculous!"
"I don't care what you think about it! I'm telling you!" He had sat back
on his heels and was staring fiercely at her, and for a heartbeat their
eyes locked. He had to blink first, and she sighed as she looked away.
"Christ, I don't understand you, I swear I don't. Here you are in the
most incredible home I ever saw, and you behave like a whining, sniveling
victim. Have you heard your voice on tape lately? You sound like someone
with a giant grudge against the world!"
"Well, the hell with
you
!" he barked, twisting to his feet in a single
smooth motion, thanks to Irma's and Luke's attentions. "Here I'm only
trying to persuade you that your daughter got a terrific deal, the same
as me, and you start bloody insulting me!"
His recent brief exposure to the possibility of anger had reminded him
how dreadfully tempting it was. But he reveled in the sensation for only
a moment before repenting, because he far more desired to hear what she
could tell him. Contrite, he caught her arm.
"I'm sorry! But your daughter
is okay
, get me? Never mind what you
think of me! Most of the time I'm not like this. I just never expected
to see a real you.
"And I never expected to meet a real you. So we're even."
"I suppose ~
"Are we? You here, rolling in luxury with knobs and bells on -- me down
there, struggling to make ends meet from one book to the next, pretending
I'm a grand success and making such a good job of it I can con the
headmistress of the most expensive school in England into taking on
my crazy Dora along with the scions -- scionesses? -- of the nobility
and gentry . . ." She gulped the last of her drink and set the glass
carefully on the floor.
Now at last she looked at him squarely, and her face took on the contours
of indescribable regret.
"I don't know who the hell I'm talking to, but I don't give a shit.
I'm just glad I can talk to you. Because there's something I've wanted
to say for years. Years and years. I know only too damned well I am
never going to make it as Greer, and it's high time I admitted the
fact. To Dora. To myself. You too, because you're here. So if you're
still thinking about ransom money, you may go take a running jump and
I hope the landing castrates you on barbed wire. You see before you one
chrome-plated, copper-bottomed, genuine authenticated failure."
"But according to what Gorse told me -- " Godwin began, and heard the
girl's grudging compliments in memory.
"Oh, I know, I know!" Barbara interrupted. "Whenever she calls me a
whore, she's careful to make it plain that I'm a top-class one, not
a streetwalker but a call girl with a phone of her own and a luxury
apartment and a maid to trot out the whips and corsets! And the very
smartest clientele -- to boot, as it were. To boots and saddles, to
whores and away! Get me a Scotch, damn you, and turn off that fucking
Cinerama show -- sound effects and all!"
He was uncertain whether it would be wise to comply; he compromised,
and Bali faded in favor of a gray sky, a London panorama, and ordinary
traffic noise. The location, of course, had to be one he knew; he felt
Ambrose's would be out of keeping, so he invoked Bill's place, with
malice aforethought. It might not come to anything, but on the other
hand it might, so . . .
But, for safety's sake, he left the apartment as it was, only cooler.
"Thought so," she said with satisfaction, accepting her refilled glass.
"It's all show, isn't it? All illusion! Like my life! Christ, when your
own daughter builds a version of you in her head which magnifies all
your failings and depreciates all your achievements, it's time to call
it quits. Isn't it?"
"Who ought Greer to have been?" Godwin said.
She started. "My God, aren't you the perceptive bastard! You know, I
wasted a thousand quid once on a psychiatrist who did me no good at all,
and he couldn't have hit me on such a sore spot in a million years!
I don't care what you are or who you are, but it's a bloody miracle I can
talk the way I'm going to. So long as you listen I can forgive you anything,
even stealing my dream and making a forgery out of it!"