Gage opened a door. “Bathroom. He, by the way, is Duane, Alma-May’s boy. Beckman sleeps up at the front. Cora and I are opposite you on the other side. Freeborn and Shanda have their trailer. Alma-May has her annexe behind the kitchen.” He paused. “One other thing I should tell you. We’re vegetarians here. So no meat or fish in our diet.”
“Fine,” Henderson nodded.
“Good,” Bryant said.
Bryant was shown to her room and was bidden goodnight.
“Everything OK?” Henderson asked her.
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing, nothing.” He hurried on to his own room. At the door Gage shook his hand solemnly.
“Breakfast is very informal, Mr Dores. Show up when you’ve a mind and help yourself. We’ll talk in the morning.”
Henderson watched him go, wondering if he’d missed his best opportunity to inform on the alarming Freeborn. He felt strange and frightened, suddenly out of his depth. He went into his room and sat down on the bed.
Once, on holiday in the Mediterranean he’d been sailing alone in a dinghy a mile or so away from the beach. Beneath him was bright clear turquoise water, with the odd dark patch of rock or weed sometimes visible on the sand floor a few fathoms below the keel. And then he’d sailed over the edge of the continental shelf, or some great chasm in the sea bed, and the sparkling turquoise had given way to a dense cold inky blue. The little boat sailed on as before, the sun’s heat on his shoulders was unfaltering, but at that instant he had felt like screaming. All those black miles of water beneath him, pale things swimming there. He turned back at once. He had a horrible fear of depths…
He pulled back the coverlet on his bed and noticed with a spasm of irritation that it was unmade. He saw the folded sheets resting on a chair in the corner. This Alma-May person, he reasoned, was clearly some kind of housekeeper so why didn’t she keep house? Angrily he made up the bed. Even without Freeborn’s unprovoked venom he would have needed no encouragement to leave this bizarre household at the earliest opportunity. Tomorrow he and Bryant would check into the nearest hotel — nearest decent hotel — Gage’s objections notwithstanding, and take things from there. At least, also, he’d be obeying the letter of Freeborn’s injunction if not the spirit.
Somewhat composed, he opened the long floor to ceiling windows at one end of the room and saw that a smaller balcony ringed the house on this upper level too. He stepped out, leant against a pillar and gazed at the dark countryside. He could hear Duane’s rock music faintly, carried to him on a gentle breeze, then it stopped suddenly. In the darkness beyond, crickets kept up their monotonous creaking. A big moth fluttered heavily past him and into his lighted bedroom. He leant out and looked up at the sky. The stars were there, reassuringly occupying their ordained places. A line of some half-forgotten poem came into his head. ‘The lines are straight and swift between the stars’ or something. He felt slightly calmer out there in the open beneath their neutral light. He rested his hands on the balcony’s balustrade and breathed deeply, wondering first how soon he could leave the house and second when he could encourage Bryant to return to the Wax grandparents.
He massaged his face. Perhaps the paintings would make the difference. He longed suddenly for the Mulholland, Melhuish office, the comforting bulwarks of his job, his routine, his colleagues. Out here he felt weak and unprotected, alien and unfamiliar. Freeborn had threatened to ‘bust his ass’. Why, for God’s sweet sake? What was he to Freeborn or Freeborn to him?
Panic and fear assailed him once again and he knew too — with a profound weariness — that sleep was out of the question this evening. The long march of the night lay ahead, the tossing and turning, the pillow-punching and posture changing. He sighed, feeling a deep sympathy for himself, and turned back to his room.
The large moth — the size of a wren, it seemed to him — that had fluttered past him on the balcony was now clumsily attacking the ceiling light, casting a leaping giant shadow over the walls and bed. Henderson wondered what to do: whether he could fashion a weapon big enough to deal it a mortal blow or pray it would fly away of its own accord. He was reluctant simply to swat this large and rather magnificent creature. He felt protective about butterflies and moths: they formed a select subclass of insects which he charitably spared from the normal ruthless pogroms he visited on the other members of their kind.
As he stood there impotently the moth settled obligingly on the wall near the ceiling. He stepped on the bed and cautiously pinched its clasped wings between thumb and forefinger. The moth’s legs bicycled vainly in the air as he carried it gingerly to the window giving on to the balcony. But then, somehow, a wing came off and the moth dropped to the floor with a soft thud, its loose wing fluttering down like a leaf to join it moments later.
Henderson felt shocked. The moth flapped and scrabbled uselessly on the wooden floor, turning in tight circles. Henderson imagined a thin moth-scream of horror and pain. Spontaneously, he stood on the damaged insect, hearing a faint crunch — like standing on a biscuit — before kicking the lifeless body out onto the balcony. He felt exhausted. The simplest acts — the most banal necessities and plans — seemed to bring in their train only absurd and trying consequences.
He undressed wearily, switched out the light, and got into bed. He felt wide awake, his mind as active as a candidate’s, sitting a crucial exam. He heard the dull bass of rock music start up again. Duane, Alma-May’s son. How and why was his aural tyranny over the household tolerated? And who was Cora? What was he going to do with Bryant? Would Freeborn really bust his ass at noon tomorrow? Would the Gage collection solve Mulholland, Melhuish’s problems? Was it likely that Irene would forgive him? And Melissa? These and other thoughts jostled and elbowed their way through his mind as he turned on the left, then on the right, lay supine, then prone, discarded his pillow, retrieved it, doubled it, weighted the bedclothes with dressing gown and guilt, kicked them off and somehow, at some time, found some minutes of repose.
Chapter Four
Cautiously, Henderson entered the Gage kitchen the next morning. He felt bad: tired and irritated, but not so irritated as to welcome a confrontation with Freeborn. But there was no sign of him, or anyone else for that matter. This was a little surprising as he had assumed that Bryant at least would be present as her room had been empty.
He poured himself a cup of coffee from a jug stewing on the cooker. Alma-May came in and nodded curtly in response to his ‘Good morning’.
“Is Mr Gage about?”
Alma-May indicated a letter propped on the breakfast table. It was addressed to Henderson, was from Loomis Gage, and informed him that he could view the paintings that afternoon when he, Gage, returned from unspecified business matters.
Henderson realized that this delay would of course violate Freeborn’s noon deadline; but surely, he reasoned, he could count on the protection of Gage senior? One thing was clear: he couldn’t move to a hotel until he’d seen the paintings.
“Have you seen Bryant — Miss Wax — by any chance?”
“She done gone off with Beckman, early this morning.”
“Good Lord. Where?” he said with alarm. Melissa would never forgive him if…He stopped. Alma-May’s head had jerked round sharply at this invocation of the Good Lord’s name.
“To Hamburg.”
He felt suddenly weak, then realized this must be Hamburg, Ga., or Hamburg, Ala., or wherever.