The Colonel's Daughter (20 page)

‘Theft, you said?'

‘Yes.' George cleared his throat. ‘I left my golf clubs on my balcony . . .'

‘We don't get theft at Palmetto. You better have another search.'

‘I have searched. The golf clubs are not in my apartment.'

‘You got insurance?'

‘Yes. I have a policy with Norwich Union . . .'

‘Okay, this is one for the PVC Office. Take minimum two IDs down to 3125 Oranto Boulevard and state the exact nature and time of the theft. All unsecured property, however, is disclaimed for responsibility purposes by Palmetto Village Security and balcony property is deemed unsecured for this purpose.'

‘What?' said George.

‘All unsecured, that is open or balcony property is
disclaimed
for responsibility purposes by PV Security.'

‘You mean Palmetto is not responsible?'

‘You got it.'

‘Then I don't see the point of these passes and all the security regulations. If you can just let a thief walk in and steal my golf clubs . . .'

‘You tell the PVC Office, Sir.'

‘And what will they do?'

‘You got two IDs?'

‘Yes. What will the Palmetto Office do?'

‘Question you, Sir.'

‘Question
me
! Look, I was out all day. I returned at four thirty p.m. to find my clubs missing. That's all I can tell them. But I am not exaggerating when I say that those clubs cost me almost a month's salary. I want them found and the thief caught!'

George realised that he was shouting. Fatigue, he thought, and fear have made me deaf to my own voice. The guard was staring at him with interest, the stare of a man watching a zoo-caged animal. He avoided the stare and turned to walk away.

Behind him the PALMETTO GARDENING van had appeared like an apparition, soundless and unseen. George stopped and stared at it. His hand, still clutching his wallet, was shaking. The girl tugged on the hand brake, unfolded her willowy body from the cart and strode to the booth. In the strong wind, her hair was whipped around her face, hiding it from George. ‘Everything conspires,' he heard himself whisper, not knowing precisely what he meant. He watched without moving as the girl waved her security pass at the guard, heard the guard say, ‘Hi, Cindy. Get home before the storm, Uhn?' George's eyes moved to the skimpy vest. He saw that her nipples were dry.

‘Hello,' he said quietly.

The girl turned. The wind caught her hair, lifting it back from her face. She reached up and held the hair and looked down at George. He noticed for the first time how very tall she was.

‘Oh . . .' she said.

George clutched his wallet, willed his body to stop shaking. I'm ill, he thought, and the girl began it. He tried to smile at her. Rested, refreshed and at peace with himself – on some other day – he could have said, ‘Don't misunderstand the kind of man I am. I only asked your name because I prefer everything to be known and unambiguous. Although I find you extraordinary and might allow myself the luxury of erotic fantasising around your milky breasts and your eyes as grey as the sky, I would never presume, that is I would never be so vain as to suppose you would give me anything of yourself . . .' Instead, he said nothing at all, saw the girl glance anxiously from him to the cart full of tools to the guard who was smiling at her, his massive presence transfigured by the smile.

‘Not many takers,' mumbled George.

‘Pardon me?' said the girl quickly.

‘For the pool,' said George, indicating the dense cloud above them.

‘Oh,' said the girl, ‘I guess not.'

And she was gone, springing back into the cart, waving at the guard, who waved back, and driving off down the clean grey road that led to the freeway.

*

The storm came rolling in on a sky blacker than dusk. Beryl made tea. The pains in her stomach came and went.

George sat on the sofa and listened to the vast, moving sheets of rain exploding against the sliding windows, felt the building shudder in the body of the wind.

Two thoughts chased each other round his brain which felt squeezed and bruised: Weissmann's boat is adrift and sinking in the storm; the girl stole my golf clubs, stowed them and hid them among her shiny garden tools, and will sell them to buy things for her baby . . .

Beryl came in and looked at George. ‘Change your mind and have some tea, George,' she said.

But no, he didn't want tea. ‘I'm beginning to think, Beryl,' he said, ‘that we never should have come.'

A sudden spasm of pain rose in Beryl's stomach and she sat down on the sofa beside George with an ungainly bump.

‘Don't be silly, dear,' she said with as much energy as her voice could muster, ‘you're usually the optimist.'

‘It was one of the gardeners,' said George.

‘One of the gardeners what?'

‘Stole my golf clubs.'

‘I haven't seen any gardeners.'

‘I have. Women.'

‘Well,' said Beryl, placatingly, ‘as soon as the storm's over – tomorrow morning – we'll go down to the Palmetto Office and get it all sorted out.'

She understands nothing, thought George, nothing,
nothing
. Things cannot now be ‘sorted out' because they are irrevocably altered. I have, in no more than twenty-four hours, encountered worlds that I do not understand. The girl is one world, the girl and her crime and the guard who is not interested that a crime has been committed against me. The other world is Weissmann, whose voice challenged me, yes challenged me at the entrance to some cave or echoey place and in that cave were all the songs and sufferings of a continent and the rich, rich owners of the wealth of that continent that I do not, nor will ever possess nor understand. I have, in a trice, simply understood my own profound and unchangeable insignificance.

Answering voices placated, denied: you said you wanted ‘recovery from mediocrity'. You cannot ‘recover from mediocrity' unless you understand the nature of that mediocrity. You have now begun to understand. At sixty, it's not too late to make a start, just as autumn is not merely a dying off, but as the leaves fly, hard new buds form already and wait for April . . .

‘I suppose,' said Beryl suddenly, ‘we should have bought steak or something for the griddle. You'll be hungry later on.'

But they weren't hungry and didn't eat. The wind howled and screamed in the mosquito wire. On the balcony, the table fell over and the parasol went flying off into the night like a javelin. The pain in Beryl lessened and she got out the cards. George agreed blankly to play Gin Rummy and silently won every round till the lights went out and Beryl gave a little scream. Almost simultaneously, the telephone rang and George fumbled his slow and terrified way to the kitchen to answer it. Beryl found a table lighter, which clicked up a minute yellow flame. Holding this, she came and stood by George's side.

The voice on the line sounded far away. Jennifer, thought George, it's Jennifer. Something's happened in England.

‘Jen?'

‘What?' said the voice.

‘Is that you, Jen? This is Dad.'

‘George? It's Monica.'

‘Oh, Monica . . .'

‘Brewer thought we ought to ring, just to make sure you're okay. It's quite a bad storm. Have your lights gone?'

‘Yes. They just went.'

‘We're still okay in Boca Raton. Poor you. What a welcome to Florida! Would you like Brewer to come over and get you in the car?'

‘No, no,' said George, ‘we're fine. But what about the boat?'

‘The boat?'

‘Weissmann's boat. It'll be adrift, won't it?'

‘Well, I don't think so, George. Why should it be?'

‘In the storm . . .'

‘Brewer will have taken care of it.'

‘I think it's gone, Monica. I think it's drifting and breaking . . .'

There was a long silence at Monica's end of the telephone. George was aware that he was breathing petrified shallow breaths. Beryl's face, lit by the tiny lighter flame, stared at him aghast. She reached out and gently took the telephone receiver from him.

‘Monica,' she said, ‘this is Beryl.'

‘Oh, Beryl,' said Monica, relieved, ‘what's the matter with George? Is he afraid of the storm?'

‘No,' said Beryl, ‘I don't think it's that.'

‘What's happened, Beryl?'

‘Well, he's just a bit upset because his golf clubs have been stolen.'

‘Stolen?
At Palmetto? It's not possible, Beryl. Palmetto's like Fort Knox.'

‘Well, I know, but there you are. He left them on the balcony and they're gone. They were brand new.'

‘Is he certain, Beryl? Has he looked everywhere?'

‘Oh yes. Everywhere.'

‘Well, I'm amazed. I never heard of anyone stealing anything at Palmetto . . .'

‘No. Well, I dare say there's always a first time.'

‘Anyway, tell him not to worry. He can have Brewer's. Brewer hardly plays any more. No, honestly, he's too busy with Weissmann's empire. I'll bring them round in the morning.'

*

With Brewer's golf clubs, scarcely less new and shiny than his own, and with the passing of the storm, the month began to settle down. The parasol lost in the storm was replaced, and religiously every morning George and Beryl breakfasted under it, like the people in the Palmetto brochure.

They were never again invited aboard Weissmann's boat, nor did they glimpse the Picasso in his hallway. But they spent some time in the bungalow Brewer and Monica had recently bought at Boca Raton, struggling to find the superlatives with which to admire Brewer's Seafarer Cocktail Cabinet, fitted out with mock compasses and other nautical pieces of brass entirely unfamiliar to them, and Monica's polystyrene rock, dyed green and brown (like army camouflage, George noted privately) over which a recycled waterfall trickled continuously into a tiny circular swimming pool.

‘Doesn't it all make you want to stay for ever?' said Monica one morning to Beryl, as they wandered the expensive shopping malls in search of presents for Jennifer and her new husband. Beryl caught a glimpse of herself in the shop window they were passing; her skin was lightly tanned, her hair had been reshaped by Monica's pet hairdresser, Giani, obliterating all its former resemblance to the Queen's.

‘Well, I think I've changed,' said Beryl, ‘and that's probably a good thing. I think at our time in life, you need a little jolt like this – something different – to put everything in perspective. But George and I are happiest where we are. I don't think Florida is quite right for us, not like it's been right for you and Brewer.'

‘But Wakelin All Saints, Beryl, it's such a backward little place.'

‘Yes, it is. Oh, I know that.'

‘And you said George won't even get to be manager. Now, I'm sure Mr Weissmann has strings enough out here to fix George up with something. I mean, money isn't a dirty word out here like it is in England. And if you're in money, Beryl, as George is . . .'

‘Oh, he's not “in” it, Monica. I think to be “in” money, you've got to have some, and George has never had any, only his salary.'

‘Well, he knows money.'

‘No. I don't think he “knows” it, either. He just went into the bank because he thought it would be safe.'

‘Safe? Safe from what?'

‘Oh, you know, Monica. Sort of from the world.'

*

The world spins faster here, George decided. Storms and hurricanes arrive in moments; flowers on the Palmetto squares come out and die in a day; by the pool, my towel is dry and stiff in half an hour. And people disappear. The girl. Weissmann. I look for the girl every day. I've seen her little cart dozens of times, but she's never in it or near it. One morning, I woke early and thought I was lying on her, my mouth on her milky breasts, my hand holding fast to her hair, like a rope. I got up and went to look for her. But I found a young man vacuuming the pool and she was nowhere. Probably she's run away, knowing she committed a crime.

And Weissmann? Brewer has a photograph of the man shaking hands with President Reagan. Brewer sees Weissmann every day. Choots is dumped on Monica, who makes him apple pie. But Choots never addresses one word to me. We had our audience on the first day and now we're forgotten, dismissed. We hire a dumpy cruiser one afternoon and pass
Nadar III
. Brewer waves. Weissmann, from his perched-up control panel, stares at us like complete strangers.

Jennifer wrote from England: ‘I don't believe we've had such a glorious autumn in Suffolk since 1976. We've been mushrooming before breakfast three or four times, and the misty, sunny early mornings are superb. No rain for a couple of weeks now and an incredible blackberry crop. Shame you're missing it, but trust the Florida sun compensates . . .'

So the month drifted to its end. Beryl sorted and wrapped the presents she had bought and acquired a lightweight canvas bag in which to carry them home. George took photographs hastily, badly, a last-minute snapping of palm and balcony and pool and river bungalow, then a final indoor sequence with Beryl moving obediently from room to room.

‘We should have thought about pictures earlier on, George,' said Beryl, ‘I mean, pictures are half of it, aren't they?'

‘Half of what, dear?'

‘It. The experience. So you don't forget it.'

‘Don't worry, Beryl. I won't forget it.'

Beryl was seated on the velvet pile couch, tanned legs crossed, hair newly set (Giani had cut the front into a rigid fringe, which made Beryl look more severe – and more intelligent – than she was), and George was backing nearer and nearer to a line of bookshelves crammed with unread, leatherbound volumes inscribed ‘Weatherburns Classic Series'.