Banishing Verona Page 20

  “Thank you,” Henry said again. “We can manage now. I’ll call the front desk if we need anything.”

  Reluctantly the men straggled away. The last to leave was the clerk. “I hope,” he said with a hint of menace, “that the rest of your visit goes smoothly.”

  During these exchanges, Verona took several deep breaths. She practiced looking at something nearby: the fake tallboy that housed the television and the minibar, and something farther away, the snowflakes beating against the dark window. As soon as the door finally closed, she grabbed Henry by the shoulders and, in spite of her girth, began to shake him.

  “For Christ’s sake, Verona,” he exclaimed, pulling himself free. “What the hell are you doing? I knocked, I rang, you didn’t answer. I thought you came here to help me, but all you’ve done is create scenes.”

  The unfairness made her clench her fists. She longed to shout—how dare he drag her to America, keep her waiting for days, break into her room, steal her inheritance?—but managed, just barely, to restrain herself. If nothing else, her silence had the satisfying effect of infuriating Henry. She went and sat down on the bed.

  “So you’ve got it into your head that you’re not going to talk. And what, precisely, will that accomplish? You came three thousand miles to see me, and now you won’t say anything. Great.”

  While he mined a seemingly inexhaustible vein of sarcasm, Verona, still in the aftermath of terror, allowed her mind to drift. What was the name of the young man whose mother’s home help had embezzled all her money? Brendan? No, Brian. She hadn’t been nearly sympathetic enough. The issue wasn’t the theft, though that was bad enough, the issue was that this woman, whom Brian regarded as a family member, had deceived him. And that’s what Henry’s been doing for decades, she thought: deceiving me and almost everyone else.

  “You’re behaving like I’ve committed the crime of the century, but really you’ve no idea what I’ve done.”

  By both profession and inclination, she regarded the right question as the vise that could crack open even the hardest shell. Now, as Henry poured words into her silence, she was struck by how much of what passed for normal conversation was wasted on arguments and misunderstandings, and by how much harder it was, lacking those diversions, to avoid the truth.

  At last he broke off, saying he needed a drink. She kept her face still as he tugged ineffectually at the door of the fridge. Finally realizing she hadn’t bothered to get the key to the minibar, he announced he’d get something from his room. “But if you lock me out again, I’ll set off the fire alarms. Okay?”

  She didn’t even nod. As soon as the door closed, she hurried to the bathroom, emptied the bath, and threw a couple of towels on the water on the floor. Back in the bedroom, she pulled on the clothes she’d been wearing before and, on some barely articulated impulse, retrieved her tape recorder from one of her suitcases. Using a pile of books for camouflage, she set it up on the table by the window. If she could get Henry to sit here, the machine would record most of their conversation. This snowy evening in this strange city might be her only chance to hear his version of events.

  He came in, holding in one hand two miniature bottles of whiskey and in the other a glass of ice. From the brightness of his eyes, she surmised a third bottle. She went and sat down at the table, hoping he would follow, and he did. While he fiddled with the top of the first miniature, she pressed the button on the recorder. The top came off with a little rip. He tipped the contents into the glass and raised it, mockingly, in her direction. “Here’s to you, O silent one. I can’t remember how much I told you the night we had dinner.”

  The simple version was that he had borrowed money, a short-term high-interest loan, from Nigel and George. He had done a couple of deals with them before and everything had gone swimmingly. They had put up the money for properties that Henry knew on the grapevine could be bought cheaply and resold quickly, at a profit. Last summer he had heard about a village in Lancashire. A ring road was planned and its path lay directly through a housing estate; Henry had talked a dozen people into selling. Then it had emerged, when they did the survey for the ring road, that the estate was built on a Victorian mine, the ground beneath virtually hollow. He owned twelve bungalows that no one wanted to buy or even rent; they might actually be worth a negative amount.

  “I blame the whole thing,” he said, swirling his glass, “on Betty. Aha, that got your attention, didn’t it? She may be mute but she’s not deaf. You’re wondering who Betty is. I met her at the gym. It’s the sort of thing she disapproves of, spending money on unproductive exercise when peasants all over Asia are working their fingers to the bone, but a friend had brought her. We were waiting to use the shoulder press. I made a joke, she laughed, and we started going out together, the usual: films, dinner. One evening she took me to Glyndebourne. Someone at the bank where she was temping had extra tickets. I’ve always known there was an upper-class idyll. That evening I got to see it up close and it was amazing. We made a picnic, took the train down from Victoria, and sat in the gardens, eating and listening. The music was gorgeous, a full moon rose over the Downs, and as the applause faded this bird began to sing. Betty swore it was a nightingale and I believed her. What other bird is warbling away at 11 P.M.?

  “She never said much about her family but I never say much about mine”—he raised an ironic eyebrow—“so it didn’t occur to me that she was being secretive. Then one day the two of us were having a drink with Toby and we ran into one of his posh gallery friends who turned out to know Betty. We all chatted for a few minutes. The following week Toby phoned, trying to round up people for an opening. Ask Betty to bring her pals, he said. That wouldn’t help, I told him. They’re all socialists, living in council flats. Then he broke the news. According to his friend, Betty’s family owned a huge estate in Lincolnshire, an island in Scotland, and another in the Bermudas. Toby didn’t tell you any of this?”

  He asked, she knew, only to rub it in; her expression made clear her ignorance. A little sleuthing had revealed that Toby’s friend was not exaggerating. If anything, the reverse. Henry didn’t mention his discovery to Betty. Their courtship continued; they spent a month at the house in Lucca he rented every summer. He taught her about wines; she taught him about birds. Finally he bought an antique ring and took her out in a paddle boat on the Serpentine.

  Where was I? she wanted to ask. And what does all this have to do with Nigel and George?

  “I should tell you,” he went on, “that Betty isn’t at all like my idea of a Betty. She’s small, flat-chested. She likes knitting and hill-walking and wait-for-it bird watching. The only thing she can cook is soup, and she belongs to some crackpot left-wing party. She used to work as a teacher’s aide in the East End and she’s still involved with the Bengali community. She’s dreadfully untidy. In other words, we were incompatible in almost every way. When I asked her to marry me—we were by that little island in the Serpentine—she didn’t jump for joy or fling her arms around me. In fact, she was silent for so long that I started pedaling again. At last, we were nearly at the dock, she said okay, let’s. It’s my life, after all. I didn’t dare ask what she meant.”

  For a few weeks, a month, he said, everything was fine. Each time she came over, she brought more of her clothes and books; they set up the back bedroom as her study. But he couldn’t help noticing that whenever he said something about marriage, she changed the subject, and some days she didn’t wear his ring. Then one evening she said there was something she had to tell him.

  “It was all very labyrinthine. Her only brother had died a few years ago of diabetes, leaving her heir to the family fortune. Ever since, her parents had had strong views about whom she should marry. What do you mean, views, I asked. I was ready to convert to any religion, any political party, but what they wanted was genuine blue blood, someone out of Debrett’s. If she married against their wishes, they would disinherit her. My expression must have changed. She began to reassure me that she didn’t care
about the money, in fact she’d prefer to be disinherited, but she did mind that they’d be upset. I did my best to cheer her up. Said that when her parents met me, they’d come round. Everything seemed fine except that I made a colossal blunder: I pretended not to know they were rich.”

  He drained his glass and reached for the second miniature. “I could get used to this business of your not talking. It’s positively restful. Maybe you can guess what happened next? She ran into Toby. The two of them went for a drink, and our golden boy let the cat out of the bag. Her parents owned a picture he was interested in, an early Hodgkin. That night she didn’t come home—she still had a room in her old flat—nor the next.

  “She collected her stuff while I was at work. She wouldn’t speak to me, she wouldn’t listen. She’d become convinced that I was the person her parents had warned her about: the callous fortune hunter. She could just about understand my not mentioning it after Toby broke the news, but she couldn’t accept my not saying anything when she told me. I swore up and down that I would love her if she were a penniless orphan, but she didn’t believe me. It was like trying to scale a wall of glass. Nothing I said made a difference.”

  Scale an iceberg, Verona silently corrected.

  “I didn’t think things like this could still happen: that there were heiresses, that I could meet one and fall for her and have her fall for me.” He was staring out of the window at the endless riot of snow. Watching him, she caught herself wondering, just for a moment, if he could possibly be sincere. Did he really love Betty, for richer, for poorer? But even Henry might not know the answer to that question.

  So, he continued, he had the idea that if he could make some money, quite a lot of money, Betty and her parents would realize he wasn’t a fortune hunter. He had gone out on a limb, borrowing not just from Nigel and George but from other people too. Then the report about the mine appeared and everything fell apart. He’d come to Boston for a long weekend to figure things out and in the hope that one of his American acquaintances might advance him the money. “The day after I arrived, I wandered into the library down the street—the guidebook recommended the murals—and picked up a magazine. There was my old girlfriend Charlotte—you know, the one with different-colored eyes who worked as a programmer. She moved here a decade ago, and according to this article she’d made a killing with a software company in Seattle. I got her phone number from her brother in London, and she was thrilled to hear from me. We had a couple of conversations and she suggested I come for a visit. I thought it was the answer to my prayers. We went skiing, wined and dined. Etc.” He pointed toward the bed. “But I must be losing my touch. When I asked about a loan she had a major tantrum and dredged up all this stuff from our past.

  “So I have two women furious at me, owe a stupid amount of money, am being pursued by two men who don’t know the meaning of restraint, and have a sister who won’t speak to me.” He picked up the empty miniatures and threw them, one by one, at the window. They bounced off harmlessly and fell to the floor. “I hope your machine got all that.”

  He stood up, bent to kiss her cheek, picked up his suitcase from where it still lay on the end of the bed, and left the room.

  Alone, Verona gazed into the swirling snow and pictured him, trudging through the blizzard, wandering the deserted streets. But even as she was embellishing her imaginings, the snow drifting over Henry’s body, covering his black coat, another part of her knew, with a confidence unshaken by recent events, that within a matter of minutes her brother would be seated in some bar or restaurant enjoying the interest and admiration of strangers.

  A few months after Marian’s death, she had been at the airport in Inverness, waiting for a flight to London, when, across the lounge, a man with high cheekbones and sleek hair caught her eye. He had looked at her steadily as he approached. To what do I owe the honor of that hellacious stare? he had asked, with a mock bow.

  I like your coat, she had said stupidly, nodding at his voluminous raincoat.

  They had talked until she boarded her plane. Julian was a fashion designer, working on his own line of grunge clothing. He was on his way to Paris to meet with some French houses. Verona told him about her job as a research assistant at the BBC. For the next few months he called at odd intervals. It was like having a boyfriend but not. In his smooth voice Julian suggested going to Antigua, promised to send samples of his clothes. When she phoned him, she invariably got a recording.

  Then one day the phone rang and a woman said are you Verona MacIntyre? After nearly two years, Jane had got fed up with supporting Julian. She had threatened to call the police if he didn’t move out. Going through his papers, she had come across Verona’s name and number. I think he’s got you in his sights as his next meal ticket. It’s a big plus, your living in London.

  But what about his collection, his grunge wear?

  Jane gave a bitter laugh. His collection, my Aunt Fanny. He did one term at art school and worked in a pizza restaurant. I assume he met you at the airport?

  Yes, he was on his way to Paris.

  In his dreams. When I met him there, he claimed to be on his way to Venice.

  The following day Julian had phoned. He’d like to visit her next weekend. The only snag was that his wallet had been stolen while he was in a pub in Glasgow. Could she lend him some money, just a couple of hundred, until he got his credit cards sorted?

  I talked to Jane, she had said. If you phone again, I’ll call the police.

  The next time she met a man in a public place she had given a false name, a fabricated occupation. It was surprisingly easy and surprisingly enjoyable. She had done it on and off for a couple of years until one day she was having a drink with a friend, and a voice called, “Laurie.” Bearing down on her, smiling, was Bertram, whom she’d met at the Imperial War Museum. What luck, he said. I tried to ring you, but I must have got the number wrong; I kept getting some old guy in Tottenham.

  My name isn’t Laurie.

  He began to protest. Everything was the same: her hair, her height. You’re even wearing the same bracelet, he said. She kept shaking her head. Bertram was a tall broad-shouldered man with pleasingly regular features. He had told her he was an accountant but his passion was country dancing. You should come sometime, he had urged, and she had promised she would. Now, in a low voice, he said, I don’t know what your game is, but if you keep this up you’ll get hurt one of these days. I hope it’s sooner, rather than later.

  Weird, said her friend, as he walked away. They do say everyone has a double.

  So about the program, said Verona, were you thinking the full hour? She had done her best to listen to the answer, but an odd sense of shame was bubbling up inside her. She had told Bertram she worked in a pet shop.

  Outside the window the storm roared. The truth was, she and Henry were as alike as two peas in a pod, two snowflakes in a blizzard. He went further but she had the same corrupt moral gene. She pressed a hand to the cold glass and watched the snow eddy through her fingers.

  Toby was still saying hello when she said, “Why didn’t you tell me about Betty?”

  “Verona?”

  “Why didn’t—”

  “I was asleep. Give me a minute here.”

  After nearly ninety seconds of rustling he was back. “I don’t know,” he said. “There was a natural moment to tell you, early on, when it was still news. Once that passed, I never found the opportunity.”

  “What about all the opportunities last week? I thought we were friends, Toby. You sent me over here not knowing something crucial.”

  “We are friends and I sent you over, if that’s how you want to put it, because I was afraid Henry was going to get one of us hurt and because he clearly needs help. Betty’s neither here nor there. What we’re dealing with are two thugs who don’t give a damn about—”

  “Listen,” she interrupted. “Either one of Henry’s wealthy friends can lend him the money, or he can sell his house. But I’m through with trying to help. I’m
coming home tomorrow.”

  He gave a kind of groan. “Do I have to explain everything? Some of the money Henry lost was mine. He said I’d ruined his chances with Betty. He persuaded me to take a second mortgage on my flat.”

  Of course. So here was Henry’s “other people,” or at least one of them. No wonder Toby had been reluctant to come to Boston, unable to act as his own advocate. “I can’t believe you’d do something so idiotic. You know Henry’s hopeless about money. He always thinks the next scheme is the big one.” For the first time that day she felt like her old self. Her lecturing Toby about Henry was one of the central tenets of their friendship.

  “If something happens to Henry,” he said, his voice cracking, “I’ll lose the love of my life and probably my flat.”

  Like her, like Henry, Toby’s middle-class life was only one layer deep. There was no family safety net waiting to catch him, rather the reverse. He sent his mother money every month. She pictured Julian crossing the lounge at Inverness Airport, she pictured Bertram pointing to her bracelet, and she ended up promising one more attempt to figure out a solution with Henry. “Though what we’re accomplishing stuck in Boston, I have no idea,” she said.

  “You’re safe,” he said. “That’s the big accomplishment.”

  Only after she put down the phone did Verona realize she had forgotten to tell him about Jigger’s will.

  The next morning as soon as she was dressed, she went to her bag, pulled out the notebook in which she had written down the number Emmanuel had given her, and dialed it. She wrote down the number of his mobile and dialed again.

  “Hello,” he said.

  Just those two syllables made her feel as if she were standing beside a grove of azaleas on a warm May morning. She had been prepared to grovel, to plead, but he accepted her apology unquestioningly. And in the happiness of that acceptance she did something she had not known she was going to do; she asked him to come to Boston.