"The Blue Afternoon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Boyd William)

THREE

Philip accepted the five ten-dollar bills I gave him as casually as if they were cigarettes. Trying not to smile, he folded them into a calfskin wallet.

'Thanks, Kay. I owe you.'

'You surely do. Two hundred and counting.'

'Ho hum. It's only money.'

'Only my money.' I laughed, all the same, Philip was being sweet tonight, as only he knew how, and I was enjoying it. We sat in a piano bar called Mo-Jo's. It was downtown, on Broadway and Third, a joint Philip knew, where his credit was good. It was a curious place, a unique blend of Polynesian idyll and Nantucket fishing village. In the lobby you parted a bead curtain and crossed a log bridge over a moving stream to be confronted by a dark room with a bar decorated with signal flags and cork floats. The barmen wore striped matelot jerseys and red neckerchiefs. Lush groves of potted palms screened intimate booths made from packing cases and driftwood. Carved backlit native gargoyles served as sconces and cast a fuggy crimson-orange light on a bamboo-framed, wall-sized mural of a square-rigged clipper running before an icy, eye-watering wind. It represented the antithesis of everything I believed in, architecturally, and it made me laugh. Philip and I would fantasise about Mo-Jo's brief to his interior designer: 'Sorta Moby Dick meets Paul Gauguin, ya know?', 'Kinda hot and steamy but cool and unpretentious at the same time', 'Nathaniel Hawthorne's wet dream'. On every table was a gilt electric bellpush designed to summon one of the browned-up cocktail waitresses – halterneck tops over grass skirts, flowers behind ear – who sulked in the gloom behind the bar bickering with the matelots. As Philip reached over to press the button he allowed his knuckles to graze my breasts.

'You look different, Kay. So… you know, bigger. I like it. You, ah, you carry it well.'

'That's meant to be a compliment?'

'OK. Try this: can I come home with you tonight?'

'Won't Little Miss Peroxide object?'

'That's not fair. It's over, long gone. You know that.'

'No.'

'Please -'

'No, Philip. No.' That particular tone of weariness crept into my voice, memories of ancient arguments, and he knew that he should not ask any more.

He stood up. 'I've got to go to the john. I'll have the same again.'

I watched him stroll easily through the tables, light-footed. His tall thin body swayed past waitresses and drinkers as he led with his left shoulder and then with his right, as if he were dancing. Like a Scottish dance, figure of eight… Why did I think of a Scottish dance? I smiled, as I recalled Philip's pale body, almost hairless, and his slim ankles, the Achilles tendon stretched and exposed, like a catwalk model's. He used to make love to me proficiently but selfishly, his head buried in the angle of my neck and shoulder, never looking up, never seeing my face, never looking me in the eyes, until he was finished.

I ordered us both another drink and thought about the man, Salvador Carriscant, who said he was my father.

When Carriscant had made his bizarre claim I told him at once that my father was dead but it gave him no pause at all, he merely gripped my forearm more fiercely and said, softly, insistently, 'Your father is here now, before you, alive and breathing. I know I have done you wrong but now I need your forgiveness. Your forgiveness and your help.'

I called again for Peter and wrenched my arm free of Carriscant's grip.

Peter came quickly up behind him and clutched his elbows, pulling them together. 'OK, brother, outside.'

'Release me,' Carriscant said, his voice suddenly uneven with anger. 'Do not lay your hands on me, I warn you.'

Some rare quality of emphasis in his voice made Peter comply. Carriscant backed away towards the wrought-iron gates of the Escorial 's entrance, still holding me with his persistent, pleading gaze.

'We just need to talk, Kay,' he said. 'Then everything will become clear.' He pronounced the last word 'cleah', in the English manner, and for the first time I registered that his voice had an accent: English, in a way, but unlocatably so, with the slightly formal perfection of the complete bilingual. 'Please Kay, it's all I ask.' His jaw muscles clenched and his square face seemed to redden, as if the effort of suppressing what he had to declare to me was bursting within him. Then he turned and left, striding off- surprisingly jauntily for an old man-down the concrete path and across the street.

Philip and our fresh drinks arrived simultaneously. Philip dipped and slid himself along the banquette until his thigh was brushing mine.

'I've got a lunch party at the beach tomorrow. Lisa van Baker's house. Want to come with me?'

'Can't, I'm afraid.'

'But there'll be movie stars,' he said, hands spread, eyebrows raised, mock-horrified at my indifference.

'I hate movie stars.'

'OK, what's the alternative attraction?'

'Home cooking.'