EBOLOWA 9

 

9

Manchester, Thursday night.

 

Ronald Uttley puffed on his pipe and the embers glowed in the semi-dark.   “Let’s wait for the lights to come on," he said, "but you’re right, SSI they were called, still are actually, and making money hand over fist working like blacks - - oops pardon my French - - on the North Sea, including my friend Ian McIntyre.  Wouldn’t be surprised if he was in some of the photos.  He wanted to meet you but they’re on emergency seven-day shifts to get the oil out in record time.  Talk about desperate measures - - he says Aberdeen is overrun with Texans and house prices are going through the roof.”

“I was thinking of going up there, maybe on the way back.”

“Good idea.  Ian had a soft spot for Annie.”

“Didn’t everyone?”

Ronald Uttley smacked his thigh and bellowed with laughter, “You’re talking about me Mr Kaplan, aren’t you?”  He took another long drink and grinned.  “I was a fool.  Wet behind the ears!  A nincompoop.  I should’ve consorted with the girls at Le Frigat like Ian did.”

“Eileen O’Connell said Annie was a flirt.”

Uttley made the sound of a cat.  “She would.”

“She was envious?”

“They all were.”

“She also said Annie left a trail of gossip behind her.”

He laughed again, “Naturally enough, there wasn’t much else to do out there,” he raised his glass, “except drink and covet.  But anyhow, she’s right, Annie did use her looks to get the choice stories.”

“Like the one about Free Trade and the heroic Englishman breaking the French tariff?”

“Ha ha.  Actually it was fair enough, I do believe in Free Trade - - ”

“Even if it means breaking the law?”

“Yes, if the law is encroaching on a higher level of liberty, like the freedom of exchange.  The American Civil War was a case in point.  It split my family from top to bottom.  Never made it up.”

Harry knew about splits from top to bottom.  “How come?”

“Did you read Lincoln’s inscription on his statue?”

“It was too dark.”

“Well, basically it’s a tribute to the cotton workers of Manchester.  They had something exceptional to be proud of.  They brought the industry to a halt by boycotting the cotton produced by slave plantations in the American South.  In effect they trumped Free Trade by appealing to a higher principle of Liberty, but my great uncle disagreed and tried to break the blockade by sending a ship to Charleston.  Split the business down the middle and the brothers never spoke again.”

“So it was family tradition that drove you to smuggle cloth into French Cameroon?”

“More or less, but it was also a terrible mistake.  I had no idea what I was getting into.”

“What would’ve happened if you’d been caught?”

“I hate to think.”  He shook his head.  “My so-called partner Victor Castile bragged about having friends in high places but he was a big mouth, what you Yanks call a mobster.  He could’ve been in the Ku Klux Klan.”

“From what I hear, Annie didn’t seem to mind.”

“No she didn’t.”  He looked into his drink, his expression suddenly sombre.  “I could never understand it.”

“What did you think when you heard she’d drowned?”

“Crying shame.  A tragedy.”  He looked at Harry as if he was stupid.  “Goes without saying.”

“Didn’t foul play cross your mind?”

“No,” he said, no hesitation.  “The rip tide was notorious.” 

“You knew she was naked when they found her?”

“Yes.  Skinny-dipping was a craze.  Everybody was doing it.”

“On their own?”

His certainty weakened.  “I don’t know - - “

“Exactly. It’s not something you do on your own, and now new evidence has come to light which suggests she met someone at the beach.”  He let the revelation hang between them.  “Someone she’d fallen for.  Any idea who?”

 “I didn’t know.”  Uttley turned bright scarlet and swigged on his beer as if it might cool him down.  “No.” 

“But you were crazy about her weren’t you?”

“I told you I was too young to know any better.”

Harry needled him some more.  “You look plenty old enough in the photos.”

The Englishman seized his glass, his knuckles white, and drained it angrily.  “What are you suggesting?”

 “Come on Mr Uttley,” he said, “you weren’t born yesterday.  If you’re crazy about someone, you know who else is.  It’s the competitive instinctive.”

“Not to me it isn’t.”  Uttley thrashed at the ashtray with his pipe.  “Anyhow I worked out of Lagos and wasn’t actually in Cameroon that much.”

“The photos might help,” he said, getting them out.

Uttley sighed loudly.  “Okay, Mr Kaplan, I give in.  You’re right, I did wonder about foul play, everyone did, and I did have my suspicions but I just couldn’t bear to think about it, he was such a thug - - ”

“Victor Castile you mean?”

“Yes.”  He looked crestfallen.  “I couldn’t stand being around them and went back to Lagos in disgust, and a few weeks later she was dead.”

“Did you talk to anyone about it?”

He shook his head.  The zip had gone out of him, like a deflated beach ball.  “I should have, I know, but it felt too much like sour grapes and afterwards I steered clear of Douala and left it to my assistant.”

“Did you ever see Castile again?”

“I made jolly sure I didn’t.  I couldn’t stand the bastard.”

“You didn’t go to the memorial service?”

“No.  I went back home.”  He stared into his empty glass.  “Seems like another life somehow, another person.”

 

 

*   *   *   *   *

 

Chicago.

 

   “I always wondered about the skinny-dipping thing,” said Helene.  “Annie was never going to do something like that on her own.  She wasn’t a solitary animal.”    

  “Exactly.”

  Candace had called her cousin as soon as she’d kicked her heels off.  It was late, nearly eleven o’clock, but Montreal was an hour behind and Helene lived an enviably social life whether she was in Paris or over this side.  Maybe it came with being the glamorous and unattached head of an upmarket lingerie manufacturer.  She was also the only other person Candace trusted with all her secrets, although she’d almost drawn the line over the Bill Holden affair.  She just didn’t want to admit she’d made such a dumb choice.

  She curled her toes.  She was feeling weirdly high even if she was still in shock.

  “It makes sense him being black - - “ said Helene.

  “How d’you mean?”

  “Well, you know what Annie was like.”

  “Not really.”  She shook her head.  “I was just her kid sister.”

  “She wanted it all.”

  “Like you?”

  “Yeah.  We were both hungry.”

  “Makes it sound as if she used people - - “

  “No.  She was just full of adventure.  Nothing scared her.”

  “Or you?”

  Helene laughed.  “Not having money scared me!  Being tied to Hugo scared the hell out of me.”

  Candace realised how little she really knew her elder sister and it was no wonder she’d resisted Harry Kaplan’s idea of Annie having a type.  Did she unconsciously imagine that finding the man Annie had fallen for was going to make up the deficit?  

  “How did Harry Kaplan find out?”  Helene asked.

  “The Ice Maiden must’ve let something slip.  He just said he had to go over there to make sure one way or the other.”

  “Didn’t you ask him?”

  “No, I was smashed.”  All the way back on the El she’d asked the same question and come up with one lame answer.  “He had to rush off.”

  “You were bound to be smashed.  I am for God’s sake, even though I’ve been gearing up for it for years.  Didn’t your Mom ever say anything?”

  “Never.  She just drank all the more.”  Candace tucked her legs under her and hugged a cushion with her free arm.  “Dad never said anything either.  I don’t think they wanted to question the official line.”

  “That’s weirder, given his politics.”

  “Oh well, they’d gone out the back door just as Marie Claire was coming in the front.”

  “Right.  Bang on time.”

  “Yeah.”  The more she thought about it the more she realised that Dad had been out of it too.  Not as much as Mom of course, but still out of it. “Marie Claire was eight months pregnant.”

  “Tell me about it.  He was on everyone’s shit list.”

  “Yeah.” 

  Candace didn’t want to remember, but her father had actually dithered about going at all.  “What if it’s early” - - his words came back to her, followed by the sound of her mother’s glass crashing against the kitchen wall.  She remembered running upstairs and smoking one of her secret cigarettes.  Jesus - - it was no wonder nobody had asked the right questions. 

  “We were all so screwed up,” she said.

  “No more than the rest of us.”

  She laughed, “Come on Helene, you’re a jet-setting top designer.  You’ll probably make the cover of Time magazine.”

  “Don’t you dare Candace!  The very thought gives me the creeps.”

  “Well, I’ve always been impressed - - ”

  “Ha!  What about Yves?”

  Yves was Helene’s errant son, about seven years Candace’s junior.  “How is he?”

  “The bills get bigger with every new fad.  This time it’s a blues band.”  She snorted.  “He thinks he’ll get to lay a lot of groupies.”

  “He’s handsome enough.”

  “Skin deep, like his father.”  Helene had been an adventurer in Paris after the war and fallen for an older man with a chateau and aristocratic ancestors.  They’d ended up on opposite ends of the political spectrum and gone their own ways.  Helene had made a point of never taking a franc from him and now she could buy him several times over.

  Candace squeezed the cushion tighter and arched her back.  She wanted a cigarette badly but had tried to quit the day after her mother’s funeral.  She’d tried to mark the occasion with something that demanded strength and fortitude, a fresh start, but it’d been brought to nought by a moment’s stupidity in a bar. 

  “You still smoking Helene?” she asked.

  “The occasional Sobranie - - ”

  Candace laughed.  “You’re such a style freak.  I can see you with one of those holders and long gloves like Leslie Caron.”

  “I make my own style thank you Candace.”

  “I’m a bit drunk.” 

  “So am I.”

  “Really?  Who was it tonight then: Emile or René?”

  “Yesterday’s men.”

  “No!  They were both so suave - - ”

  “I forgotten you’d met them - - ”

  “I haven’t.  I could just imagine what they were like.”

  “I didn’t know I was that frank, even with you.”

  “You are, and you know it.”  Helene was the consummate confidant, revelling in the story telling.  “So who’s the latest?”

  “I’m suddenly circumspect - - ”

  “Rubbish.  Come on, who?”

  “I’ll swop you - - ”

  “Done.  I dumped that jerk Bill Holden.  Got in before he did.”  She was still jubilant.  “You should’ve seen him!”

  “You never introduced us - - ”

  “And you know why.  Talk about a passing phase - - and talking of passing, what a shock about Pompidou.”

  “Yeah.  I should’ve guessed because he was hardly around but they kept it hushed up.”

  “Another mess,” she said: all over the West the state appeared to be afflicted by scandal, bankruptcy, or terrorism and to Candace the world had never seemed so unstable. “Will it affect your business?”

  “Depends who wins the election.  Anyway what’s this private eye like?”

  “Nice looking, with an accent like Kissinger’s.”

  “Well, Henry is quite the ladies’ man - - ”

  “I know.”

  “Where’s he from?”

  She shrugged.  “I haven’t asked, but he speaks French.”

  “Let me know when you’ve got a better impression.  I’m intrigued.”

  Helene had persuaded her to hire a private eye in the first place and then they’d really got into the idea and had a laugh about which of the fictional versions he’d resemble.  And which they’d most like him to resemble.

  “Maybe he’s a bit like Bogart,” she said, “but he doesn’t wear a hat and Bogart is all hat - - ”

  “All hat.  That I doubt.”

  “You know what I mean.  The trilby defines him.”

  “And what defines Harry Kaplan?”

  “He’s got a big mouth,” she said after a thought.  “Nice smile with dimples or sardonic when it’s turned down, a bit like Jean Paul Belmondo - - ”

  “Oh wow.”  Candace could hear Helene clapping her hands. 

  “Maybe it’s his eyes.”  She stopped.  A serious thought had taken the stage.  She gripped her forehead, thumb pressing into her temple.  “I’m not sure Helene, but there’s something shadowy about him.”

  “Maybe he’s hiding something.”

  “Yeah.”  She liked the idea of him having a secret. “He’s not American born and bred.  An emigrant like you.”

  “You can live with that.”

  “Absolutely.” 

  “How old is he?”

  “Same as me.  Mid to late thirties.”

  “Mmmm.  He sounds interesting.  I think you’d better tell him to fly via Paris and let your aunt Helene have a look.“

  “Tough.  He’s already on his way via London and Lagos.”

  “Shame.  Thinking of flights, I’d better go and pack, I’m heading back tomorrow.  Why don’t you join me?  You’ve got the time and the best reason ever, and I’d love to have you.”

  She sat up with a start.  Why not?  The best excuse ever.

  “You sure?”

  “’Course I am.  Please come.”

  “Thank you Helene, I’d love to.”

  “Call me with the flight details.  Promise.”

  “Promise.”

  She put the phone down.  Memories of her mother came back to her, and Annie.  The past was over.  It had to be, but it was still in front of her.