Players at the Game of People (20 page)

"It shall be done!" Della clapped her hands and spun around, her broad
bottom waggling in a pair of unsuitable Bermuda shorts cut from something
resembling brocade.
A little faintly Barbara said, as she touched their table, then her chair,
as though afraid they would prove insubstantial, "She's the owner?"
"Oh, sure, but this is just a hobby for her. She's one of the highest-paid
astrologers in the world. Very few of them understand both the European
and the oriental traditions. She does. It was what she wanted, so she
does." Godwin dropped into his own chair and leaned back, trying not
to yawn.
Barbara pondered a while, then posed a question which startled him out
of his heat-induced lethargy.
"What does Dora want -- I mean Gorse? What has she been offered?"
"Success as a designer" was Godwin's prompt reply.
"I see. I don't suppose she told you she has no talent to speak of? No?
Oh, well: that's typical. But in a case like that, is the talent somehow
-- uh -- supplied? And if so, how?"
It wasn't the first time this extraordinary woman had disconcerted him,
but this time the shock was more severe. Why not? He knew what Bill had
wanted, Irma, Hermann, Luke, and the rest. He knew what Wilf and Della and
Maud and André had asked for and got. He knew what Ambrose had desired,
and he seemed well pleased . . .
But he had never wondered what would happen if somebody wanted something
he or she was unequipped for.
And, hovering on the edge of awareness, here came the implicit question
which he dared not face.
I have what I asked for; is it all I was fit for . . .
But Barbara had dismissed the point with a shrug, and was looking about
her curiously.
"Could we walk out of here and find ourselves in a real street? Could we
go down it to a real Hawaiian beach and watch the surfers?"
"Why not?" Godwin answered.
"I see. 'Everything is as real as anything else.'" She fumbled a cigarette
from the pocket of her shirt. As she set it to her lips one of Della's
prompt waiters arrived bearing their sake and an appetizer of fried
seaweed with the compliments of the house. He lit it for her with a
flourish and departed smiling.
So she stubbed it out at once and ate the crisp seaweed -- correctly,
with her fingers. Still glancing around, she pursued, "Those steps we
came down."
"What about them?"
"Suppose someone else walked up them. What would they find at the top?"
"Nobody ever does."
"But -- "
"Nobody ever does," he repeated firmly. "That's -- well, it's built in."
"Built into what? The deal you made?"
"I . . . Yes, I suppose you could say that." Uncomfortably, because he
didn't like the tone she used to say "deal."
"Then why isn't immunity from the police asking to see a passport built
in, too?"
"Because -- "
But he bit the words off short. He thought he understood why. He was
ninety percent certain he did. He was also fairly sure he could explain
the reason in terms that at least some people -- Barbara, for example --
could understand. Most wouldn't; they were the exceptions.
If he were to try, though . . .
He remembered Hamish Kemp tearing his body to bloody ruin.
He was therefore infinitely grateful when the waiter returned with their
main course and their bottles of Japanese beer.
"You know something?" Barbara said thoughtfully. "I'm taking this
experience seriously because -- you know why?"
"Yes."
She stared at him, affronted. "Well, then -- why?" she snapped.
"Because it's making you drunk."
"How the hell did you know what I was going to say?" Her voice peaked
to a volume which attracted the attention of people at other tables;
she caught herself and repeated the question in a fierce whisper.
"I didn't," Godwin said after a fractional hesitation. "It just sort of --
Well, it came together in my mind." He passed her a pair of chopsticks
after removing their paper shroud and, taking another for himself,
began to load her bowl with stir-fried beef.
But behind the words there were sudden perceptions which frightened
him. He could visualize her, alone in a bed-sitter after being used
to the luxury of a Park Lane apartment, with her baby crying away the
small hours. He could almost guess the label on the bottle where she
sought relief.
"Oh, the hell. Like to like, I suppose . ." She dipped her chopsticks in
the beef and, having tasted, ate voraciously for the next few minutes,
while in the background the sound of traditional Hawaiian music --
emanating from a radio next door -- gave way to a disco beat and the
tones of a DJ with a line in supposed-to-be-amusing local jokes.
For the sake of appearances (and how much of the story of his life
was summed up in that phrase, he realized with terrifying abruptness),
Godwin dipped into the awabi and vegetables, leaving her the beef, since
she so visibly enjoyed it. The respite was welcome, but not indefinite.
With her mouth still full, but setting her chopsticks down, she said,
"Not just because it's making me drunk. Because it does this for me.
I never had beer-fed beef until I went to California. Some arsehole of a
TV producer wanted to impress me and took me to a restaurant where they
served beef flown in daily from Kobe. It wasn't half as good as this."
"You wanted to see if my -- my illusion could match it?"
"Illusion?" She gave a short harsh laugh. "This beats reality if it is
illusion!"
"I don't know the difference," Godwin said, and took a long swig of beer.
"Is that literally true?" she murmured, taking out another cigarette. His
exiguous appetite was used up; he leaned back, pushing away his bowl.
"I live the way I live," he said, for want of a better answer. "It's what
I chose."
"And what you hoped it would be?"
He stiffened at the gibe; she luckily forbore to follow through her
advantage, but reached for the ashtray without looking at him and went on,
"Oh, I've seen too damned many rich people without a purpose to think
of envying them any more. And the ones who are rich with a purpose are
even worse. They're almost always cruel. Even when they think they're
being kind, they're bossy, they're patronizing, they do their best to
stifle individual enterprise among the people they patronize because
they know better. Some of them," she concluded bitterly, "even believe
that they know
best
."
Godwin hesitated again before venturing his next comment, but it seemed
that he had the measure of this strange woman, and that was reassuring --
indeed, comforting. He had, without fully realizing it, been afraid that
his long existence as a solitary had deprived him of the ability to assess
other human beings. In this one case at least he was doing excellently.
He said, "This sounds as though you're arguing with Gorse."
She started so violently she almost spilled her beer; she had just made
certain of the last of the sake.
"You got to know her very well, didn't you?" she snapped.
"No."
"But -- oh, hell! Why not?"
"Because she talked more about you than about herself."
Barbara froze for an instant. "Is that true?" she demanded at length.
"Yes."
"How can I be sure?"
This was becoming boring again. Godwin said with what little patience he
could still muster, "Just think about why people lie! It always has to do
with gain. What could I possibly gain more than what I already have,
by lying or any other means?"
She regarded him levelly for a long while, her right hand caressing the
tall, cool glass in which a trace of her beer remained. Every pass of
her fingers wiped away more condensation, until the surface was clear
and running wet.
Finally she said, "Companions in adversity."
And braced herself for his reply, as for a slap in the face.
Instead, he found himself gazing at her foolishly and saying, "What?"
"Marlowe!"
It crossed his mind to say fliply, "Oh, yes! Philip!" He canceled the
impulse, and felt furious because she had put him at a loss. Why the hell
did this woman, who had on her own admission led a life which climaxed
in failure, retain the gift of taking him aback?
He wished he had never seen her. He wished he had never craved a decoration
for bravery. He wished he were dead.
Or better: that she were.
At last she put him out of his misery as she stubbed her cigarette into
the cooling pile of uneaten vegetables.
"Let's get back where we came from. If we can."
"You don't want your banana fritters?"
"No."
"As you like, then." He rose and turned back to the stairs.
"Don't you have to -- ?"
"Pay?" He curled his lip in a sour smile. "I keep telling you, and you
don't believe me, do you?"
"Don't people notice?"
"Very probably."
"Then -- "
"Then they assume we run a permanent charge account!" he snapped, and even
that delay had been too long. For here came bustling Della again, just in
time to prevent him having to answer Barbara's half-whispered question:
"Who's 'we'?"
"You leave so soon? But you just got here!"
"Della my love, it's a big wide world and each of us must follow our own
destiny."
"True, true!" -- with a look of uncharacteristic solemnity. "But is your
destiny truly leading you somewhere?"
"I'll be able to answer that when I arrive."
"Oh, wow!" She broke into a peal of laughter. "Aren't you always the
one with the sharp answer, God?
Oh
, yes! Let me kiss you, baby, in
case it's so many years again before we meet!"
As she was planting a loud kiss on his cheek Barbara said caustically,
"You can't predict when that will be? He tells me you're the best
astrologer round here."
Della drew back, something feral coming into her expression as her hands
curled into claws. Godwin had a faint recollection of hearing about her
background: leader of a murderous interracial Street gang when she was
thirteen, determined to prove that just because her name was Portuguese
she didn't
have
to live out her life at the bottom of the Hawaiian
totem pole . . .
It would have been so much more fun to recruit her than bloody Gorse!
But of course he hadn't been given that assignment. He had stuck strictly
to his own patch, dutifully, obediently.
Were duty and obedience enough?
He slapped that down, just as Della was getting set to do the same to
Barbara, and hastily exclaimed, "Now, ladies!"
"Lady?" Della repeated. "I never knew what it meant till I got old and
bitter. And she didn't make it even yet!"
"But he" -- from Barbara, with a nod at Godwin -- "has a kind of
old-fashioned charm, doesn't he? A sort of . . . A sort of
square
charm?"
That was better than tactful. It reduced Della's scowl to a grin in no
time at all, and she wound up embracing Barbara and insisting that she
come back soon, without this pain-in-the-ass to drag her down. Barbara
duly promised.
And whispered behind her hand, "Get me out of here!"
Half puzzled, yet half relieved, he took leave of Della and they made
their way back up the stairs they had descended into her courtyard. He was
preparing himself to answer what he thought of as Barbara's unavoidable
question -- "What's here when you aren't?" -- and finding himself
ill-equipped when she stepped into the London apartment and glanced
apprehensively behind her. The view was still Hawaiian.
"Are we back where we started?" she demanded.
"You mean: will you find London if you go to the street door?"
"Of course that's what I bloody mean!"
"Yes, you will."
"Then I want out!" She snatched up her jacket from the chair where it
had been dumped. "I want to go back to a sane, familiar world, and I
want to do it
now
!"
"No!" Dismayed, he took a step toward her while a cascade of thought went
pelting through his head, powered at the basic level by a single urge:
if I never get to make it with the little girl who sucked my tongue
in front of the palace, I should bloody well get to make it with
this version!
At some point it turned, however, into:
I deserve to!
And that didn't make sense.
He had to flee from that confrontation with himself and found a way in
saying, "But why?"
"I told you!"
"You didn't!"
"Oh yes I fucking well did, and you were too thick to notice!"
They were confronting each other like boxers and they were panting
and they held their hands ready to curl into fists and they were almost
dancing on their toes and the room was superbly -- proudly -- uncaring so
that they bumped into stools and low tables and the corners of magazine
racks while they circled.
It was funny.
Yes, of course it was. It was like a Laurel and Hardy film.
He essayed a laugh and it came near to choking him, but it broke the
deadlock. She said, "If you were trying to make an impression on me,
you didn't. But you told me what you've done and why I have to hate you."
Hate?
Words so redolent of strong feeling were long unfamiliar to Godwin.
All such emotions had been left by the wayside. He said foggily,
"I never did anything to make you hate me."
"But you did." She was drawing on her jacket, having made it to the side
of the room nearest the way out. "That's why I want to get away from here
as soon as possible." Looking about her, she shuddered at the sight of
the splendid furniture, the luxury wall hangings, the vision of a Pacific
summer which remained, clouded by smoke and mist, beyond the windows.
"Stop talking in riddles!" Godwin raged, catching her by the arm.
Oh, the temptation of anger! It was coming closer to his inner self with
every passing second. To bruise; to beat up; to make bleed . . .
But perhaps that was a sort of insurance for the owners?
The idea was novel, and alarming, but it resonated with images from
Hamish's death. Godwin took a steely grip on himself and looked at
Barbara afresh, as a woman, a handsome woman, a woman who had had the
persistence -- the guts, the bloody-mindedness -- to struggle through
a miserable life and somehow, nonetheless, create an identity, derived
from nobody but herself and her own dreams.
Whose dreams, he found he was asking himself,
created me
?
At twenty, what had he known about real life? Had he even believed there
was such a thing?
"Let," she said, between clenched teeth.
"Me . . .