He never got a chance to use them. It was the day Hollywood chose to come calling and all Mike wanted to talk about were the hallucinatory figures involved and the possibility that they might get to watch themselves immortalised on screen by Tony Carpenter or Eduardo Rojas.
Carla called a couple more times that week, and then, suddenly, she was at the front desk, asking for him. Mercifully, it was a night Liz Linshaw had chosen not to show up. He thought briefly, cruelly, about telling the desk staff to send her away, then caught a glimpse of himself in a wall mirror and grimaced. He changed into something freshly laundered, slipped on a pair of casual shoes and went down to face her.
She was sitting on one of the sofas in reception, immaculate in faded jeans he remembered buying with her, boots and a neat black leather jacket. When she saw him, she got up and came to meet him, trying for a smile.
‘So. I get an audience with the man of the moment. Feel good, being famous again?’
‘What do you want?’
‘Can we go up to your room?’
‘No.’
She looked elaborately around the quiet, well-bred bustle of the lobby. The hurt barely showed in her voice.
‘Have you got someone up there?’
‘Don’t be a fucking bitch. No, I haven’t got anyone up there. Jesus, Carla, this isn’t about someone else. You fucking left me.’
‘So I’ve got to stand here while you shout at me?’
He swallowed and lowered his voice. ‘There’s a bar through there, through that arch. We can sit in there.’
She shrugged, but it was a manufactured detachment. In the corner of the bar, she sat and stared at him out of eyes that shone with unshed tears. She’d been crying recently, he knew. He could tell. He felt a tiny thawing at the edges of his anger at the knowledge, a tiny, aching warmth. He crushed it out. A uniformed waitress appeared with an expectant smile. He ordered Laphroaig for himself, asked Carla whether she’d like something to drink, and watched the formality of his tone stab her through. She shook her head.
‘I didn’t come here to drink with you, Chris.’
‘Fair enough.’ He nodded to the waitress and she went back to the bar. ‘What did you come for?’
‘To apologise.’
He looked at her for a long moment. ‘Go on then.’
She managed a smile. Shook her head. ‘You bastard. You’ve turned into a real bastard, Chris. You know that?’
‘You left me in the middle of the fucking zones, Carla. At two o’clock in the fucking morning. You’ve got some apologising to do.’
‘You called me a whore.’
‘And you called me.’ He gestured helplessly, not remembering how the row had stoked so high. ‘You said—’
‘I said I couldn’t recognise you any more, Chris. It wasn’t an insult, it was the truth. I don’t recognise you any more.’
He shrugged. Ignored the tiny acid drip at the centre of his chest. ‘So why come here at all? I’m a write-off, I’m unrecoverable. Tender trash. So why waste your time?’
‘I told you why I came.’
‘Yeah, to apologise. You’re not making a very good job of it.’
The Laphroaig came. He signed for it, sipped and put it down on the table between them. He looked back up at Carla.
‘Well?’
‘I didn’t come to apologise for leaving you in the zones.’ He opened his mouth and she made a slashing gesture to silence him. ‘No, listen to me, Chris. I’d do it again if you spoke to me like that again. You deserved it.’
She stared away across the bar, assembling what she wanted to say. Absently, she reached across the table for the whisky tumbler, recognised the automatic intimacy for what it was and stopped herself rigidly. She blinked a couple of times, fast.
‘That’s not what I have to apologise for. I have to apologise because I should have left you a long time ago. I’ve spent the last year, the last two years, I don’t know maybe even longer than that, trying to turn you back into the man I thought you were when we first met.’ She smiled unconvincingly. ‘And you don’t want to be that man any more, Chris. You aren’t that man any more. You’ve found something harder and faster, and you like it better.’
‘This is crap, Carla.’
‘Is it?’
Silence. A tear broke cover under her left eye. He pretended not to see it, reached for his whisky instead. She found a wipe in her jacket.
‘I’m leaving you, Chris. I thought maybe. But I was right the first time. There’s no point.’ She gestured at the hotel around them. ‘You’re happier like this. Living on room service, locking out the rest of the world. It isn’t just the job you do any more, that fucking tower you run your remote control wars from. It’s everything. Twenty-four, seven, insulated from reality. How long would you have gone on sitting in this place, if I hadn’t come here tonight? How long would you have shut me out like everyone else?’
She got up abruptly. He sat staring straight ahead, out of the windows of the bar to the street outside.
‘You fucking left me, Carla. Don’t try and turn it around.’
She gave him a bright, brittle smile. ‘You’re not listening to me, Chris. I’m leaving you. I’ll need a couple of weeks to get my stuff out of the house—’
‘And where are you going to go?’ It came out ugly.
‘I’m going to stay with,’ she laughed a little. ‘Not that it’s anything to do with you any more. I’m going to stay in Tromsö for a while. Until I can get the divorce sorted out. I’m assuming you aren’t going to contest it, you’ll probably be happier than I am to get free. Give you plenty of room for your new penthouse playmate, whoever she is.’
‘What the fuck are you talking about?’
‘Oh, please. I’m not stupid, Chris. I saw the way the people at the desk looked at me when I asked for you. I hear the way they react when I try to call you. I’m not the only woman you’ve got coming here. I just hope whoever it is is worth what you’re paying.’
He shrugged. ‘Think what you like. Better yet, check the credit-card accounts. Spot all the charges to escort agencies I must be making. You never did have a very high opinion of me, did you?’
She shook her head, drew a hard breath that had tears in it. ‘You don’t know how wrong you are about that, Chris. You’ll never fucking know.’
‘Yeah. Whatever.’
She turned to go. Paused and turned back.
‘Oh, yeah. You’d better come out and collect the Saab. Some time soon. I haven’t touched it, but I’m not sure how long I can stand it sitting there in the drive while I know you’re here fucking some moan-on-demand tit-job. My maturity’s wearing pretty fucking thin.’
She walked away from him.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Liz Linshaw came over the following evening, and walked bang into the aftermath. Chris was moody and snappish, and when they got into bed he needed a hand-crank start. They fucked, but it wasn’t much fun. He went through the motions, wrestling irritably over choices and changes of posture, and only finally managed to lose himself in the pay-channel perfection of her body as he came. Scant seconds later, he hit the real world like concrete from fifty floors up. No post-coital warmth, no chuckling or smoothing of sweat-soaked skin. There was a raw hollow behind his eyes and in his chest.
They unplugged and lay apart.
‘Thanks,’ she said, staring at the ceiling.
‘Sorry.’ He rolled towards the juncture of her thighs. ‘Come here.’
She pushed his head away. ‘Forget it, Chris. Just tell me what’s wrong.’
‘You don’t want to hear it.’
‘Yes I do.’
He rolled onto his back again. He blew imaginary cigarette smoke at the ceiling. ‘Carla came to see me,’ he said finally.