Ivoria Page 4

  Nick had to go at once to the downstairs guest cloakroom, where he voided his breakfast speedily.

  That seen to he called Laurence again. But Marj answered and told him Laurence had just gone out, as she put it, “in a hurry”. Her English was excellent. But as he tried to question her, “No, no,” she kept insisting, “Claudia is not here.” He could get nothing else from her.

  Laurence did have a mobile phone, it was the eighties by then. So Nick found his number in the family address folder, and tried to reach it. But the phone was apparently switched off, or else out of order.

  Nick sat in the hall, and wondered whether to try to contact his father in Belgium, but years of conditioning, mostly by his mother, warned him Joss, when involved in work, must be left alone. Serena’s whereabouts Nick had no notion of. He felt powerless. He was.

  When Mrs Rush came clicking down the hall and told him he should think about going now or he would miss the bus, Nick told her in turn his mother had disappeared.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Nicolas,” she snarled, the partial rhyme making her brusqueness more dire. “Of course she hasn’t.”

  “My brother thinks she has.” Nick relayed Laurence’s news, not terribly coherently. “Can’t we…”

  “Nicolas, I’d remind you I’m far too busy to start playing games. I know you like to scribble instead of doing your homework, but this isn’t a story. I suggest you hurry off to school and let me get on.”

  Nick went back into the lavatory. Then back up to his room. He sat on a chair and started to cry. He knew this was ineffectual and infantile, but he could not help it. He knew - he knew - Claudia was dead.

  Obviously, he did not go to catch the bus.

  By a strange, if not illogical coincidental twist, neither the abrasive Rush, nor any of the other domestic help, knew he had not left the house. They believed he had gone to school, as was required. So he was offered no lunch, but nor did he want any.

  He got on to the bed in the end, and lay on top of the duvet, numb and bleak and mindless and dumb, only hearing the vague noises of the quiet house, birds on the roof, seeing a flick of wings or change of cloud or sun in the sky, and those only from miles down in some deep well of internal non-being.

  Seven years after, when Claudia actually died, he had been truly and physically miles away. He had known nothing, beyond - he always believed this - a faint unease throughout that particular day, until Serena called him in the middle of the night.

  The horrible dichotomy of that other first day, when he was eleven, was that he knew she could not be dead. And yet he knew she was.

  He must have had nightmare fantasies of how or why, the adult Nick concluded, although by then he was never certain. A car crash, probably. That was probably what he thought. What else? She was still so young and so beautiful and so real and alive. Yet dead.

  He did try to call Laurence two more times, from the upper hall. But Laurence’s phone was still out.

  At about four Nick was going down to the lower house, not really intending any more than to get some water from the kitchen.

  Mrs Rush met him on a landing.

  “You’re back very early,” she said disapprovingly. “Your sister called. You’re to call her on this number.”

  Nick grabbed the paper and ran for the nearest phone, which was in his father’s library. It was a colourless room of dull books to do with commerce and politics, frothed up by a few constipated fictional classics that anyway Joss never read.

  The number was a foreign one, Greece, as it turned out. Serena was not on a boat either, but in the Mediterranean shore house of some elderly actor, along with about fifty other people. She was around seventeen then, but fluent for her years in languages, and other matters.

  “Nicky - what’s this about Mum?” She was the only one who sometimes called Claudia that, and even then never to Claudia’s face.

  Nick, now with the calm of utterly ingrained shock and despair, described Laurence’s call.

  She replied, “Yes, that’s why I called you - because he called me too. It was bloody inconvenient. We were just going to have a swim. Max,” - this, the actor - “loves to see all us young ones disporting ourselves, as he puts it. But what happened?”

  “I don’t know,” said Nick. “He went out and turned his mobile off.”

  “Bastard,” said Serena. In the background a young male voice called: “Reenie! Your drink’s getting warm.” “Look, Nicky, if you hear anything let me know, will you? It’ll be nothing. Laurie’s such a cretin. Of course, she does drink too much. And she does take risks.” More voices. “What? Oh -oh look, Nicky, have to go. Call me, right?” And then some outpouring of incomprehensible Greek, whether a show-off farewell for him or greeting for one of her companions he did not know.

  Nick sat in the library and started to cry again. As he cried he thought he should somehow do something after all.

  He had enough money for the last bus to the nearest town, and then he could catch trains, (at least two changes, he thought) and get to London - but did he have enough cash for trains? Nobody would drive him, that was a fact. Could he hitch a lift? What did it matter if he ended up in the car of a maniac if Claudia were dead?

  He fell asleep by the phone, so when it rang just after 6 p.m. he started awake and clutched the receiver and had it to his ear before he even remembered why he must.

  “Hello, darling,” she said.

  He remembered then, and knew it could not be her.

  “Who is this?” he asked, and now his voice had crumbled into its rough lower register.

  “Guess,” she said, her tone full of smiling, full of her. Like her scent, and warmth.

  “Claudia.”

  “Who else? Are you all right, Nick, my love?”

  He heard himself say, “Yes, yes I’m… Yes.”

  “Good. Listen, darling. I’m going to be late, about ten. Your brother took me to this absurd bar, supposed to be American. It was hilarious. But I won’t be getting the car now until eight. Tell Roo,” (this was Mrs Rush) “to leave me something I can eat cold, with some Chablis. Darling, I love you. See you later.”

  When he put the phone down his head fell forward rather as if it had come off. Perhaps he passed out for a pair of seconds. Nothing worse.

  It was not until the ultimate shock, of relief, had eased a little that he reasoned Laurence had played a trick on him, and presumably on Serena too, but that it would be no use Nick’s reporting this to his mother, let alone complaining of it. Claudia had never taken Laurence seriously, or so Nick believed. And Laurence would seek to visit retribution.

  It would be no use, definitely, speaking to Laurence himself.

  Sound advice. In fact Laurence called him again later, around nine fifteen. “Did Claudia reach you? She’s going to be late.”

  “Yes,” said Nick. He had by then eaten some of the fish and cheese and salad served him. He felt an uncanny lightness, as if part of him had fallen away forever, as perhaps it had.

  “Regrets about the panic before,” said Laurence. His tone was now that of a human viper, thick and rich with poison, tasting it, savouringly, on a forked and unrelenting tongue.

  “Of course you wouldn’t have known where Claudia and I were supposed to meet. I had the address on me all the time.”

  So that was the tale. Laurence had originally called Nick to ask if Nick knew the venue for the lunch date. And Nick had imagined, (imaginative, nervy Nick, always scribbling his silly little scraps of stories) that Laurence had been in a ‘panic’ because Claudia had not come back to the Highgate house, and no one knew where she was. (He must have bribed or also confused Marj.) And Laurence would say Serena too had got the wrong end of the stick, but she never concentrated, did she, busy with her own overfull narcissistic life. Either that or Laurence had co-opted Serena into the joke. “Go on, let’s give baby bro a scare. Bloody spoilt little rat. Beloved Claudia’s disappeared. He’ll shit himself.”

  And if that had been
the plot’s goal, well, Nick nearly had.

  He said to the nine o’clock phone, “’S OK, Laurence.” He sounded flat and ordinary. “You can’t help being a complete pillock.”

  Laurence could not quite resist. He let out a spurt of laughter. “Touché, you little bugger,” was all he said. And that was that.

  Claudia came in a few minutes after ten.

  The hall lamp gilded her and she looked like an angel. But she always did. She was alive.

  “I didn’t go to school,” Nick said. “I threw up.”

  “Poorest Nick. Are you all right now?”

  “I’m fine now.”

  She hugged him. She smelled of perfume and faint smoke and the indefinable Known. They shared supper in the kitchen, the casual domestics all dissolved away, and she gave him half a glass of the Chablis, quoting the Bible, “Take a little wine, for thy stomach’s sake.”

  5

  “Perhaps you should answer it,” suggests Pond, just as the phone stops ringing and the ansa-machine kicks in.

  He and Nick stand, listening respectfully to the recorded female voice Nick allows to be his front. While they do this Nick recalls he had never checked who the previous call was from that morning. He had assumed it was from the madwoman again - or Angela, as it has turned out the others were, Laurence’s wife.

  This time anyway it is Jazz.

  “Baby, I have something I have to talk to you about. It’s quite, you know, urgent in a sort of way. Call me, babes, on the chewy number.”

  When the message ends, Pond makes no comment. He conveys a man-of-the-world’s complete and uninvolved approval of Nick’s luck that such an evidently delicious and well-spoken woman should so address him. Even mention of the ‘chewy’ number fails to prod Pond to so much as a raised eyebrow. However:

  “Well now, sir. Perhaps we can establish whether or not you did meet with your brother, Mr Laurence Lewis, on Friday?”

  Nick takes a cautious drink of water.

  “He came round. He only stayed about three quarters of an hour. He got here roughly about five twenty, I think, and left just after six.”

  “No making a night of it, then?”

  “No, Mr Pond.”

  “But had you thought you would be?”

  “No. He just wanted to ask me about something. I was meeting someone else later anyway. A woman.”

  Pond seems to cogitate. That is decidedly the right word, cogitate, somehow heavy and slightly sticky, Nick thinks.

  “Do you happen to remember,” Pond says, attaching his eyes to Nick once more, “what your brother was wearing while he was here?”

  Nick does. It is odd. He had, for some reason, almost memorised Laurence’s garments that evening.

  “Dark jacket and trousers, blue shirt with a stripe, dark cashmere-mix coat. Scarf. Lace-ups - leather.”

  “He’d been up in the north, was it? Yes, and so he had bags with him too, I suppose.”

  “I suppose so. He’d have left them in the car.”

  “Yes. I have the make of car, a Volvo. Anything else distinctive?” Pond asks. “I mean, that he was wearing, or had on him?”

  Nick thinks. He says, “He had two watches. A Rolex in his pocket, and a sort of strappy self-wind watch Angela gave him. He was wearing that.”

  Pond only considers now. “Jewellery?”

  “Just his wedding ring.”

  “That would be gold.”

  “Platinum.”

  Pond does not write anything down. Still seems to be waiting.

  Nick abruptly wonders if he should mention the small ivory counter Laurence had also pocketed. How can it be relevant?

  But he becomes uncomfortable, takes another drink of water, and feels Pond evaluates his gesture for what it is: indication of something unspoken.

  “Very well, sir. You’ve been helpful. Perhaps I could take your telephone number before I go.”

  “I’m in the book.”

  “Just to save time,” says Pond. “And your mobile too.”

  Nick reveals the numbers and Pond taps them into his own mobile. Nick half expects Pond to use his phone to take a photo of Nick as well, also just to save time. But this does not occur.

  Nick sees perhaps he himself should add something, ask something, as a properly concerned brother might.

  “What do you think’s happened, Mr Pond?”

  “Oh, I expect there’s some ordinary explanation, sir. There usually is.” Pond is ambling towards the outer door and Nick is aware of a tension inside himself beginning to slacken.

  Pond pauses. “By the way,” says Pond, “can I inquire why it was Mr Lewis wanted to see you? Just to say hello? Or something else? I had the impression from his wife you and he don’t often get together. She was surprised, she said, you and Mr Lewis were fraternizing for an entire evening.”

  Nick finds he is caught in a dilemma. If he tells Pond of Laurence’s indecision-decision on the female TV producer, Pond may well spill all the beans to Angela. And when Laurence then turns up, this may cause a few problems. Does Nick care? He does not like, let alone feel protective of Laurence. He detests Laurence. And yet. A vengeful-spiteful Laurence might force his way even more into Nick’s life.

  “It was something about his work,” Nick says. “Something he thought I might know. Something about ivory.”

  “Ivory?” Pond is intrigued?

  “But I know very little about that sort of thing. I just - gave him this small ivory game-piece I had. That was all he wanted.”

  “So he had a piece of ivory with him when he left.”

  “Yes, Mr Pond.”

  Pond stands inertly by the door, seeming like a tired dog wanting to be let out, and unable to open it. Nick undoes the door.

  After Pond has left and the door is shut, Nick anticipates for some while that Pond will return, scratching on the outside of the door like a spaniel, perhaps making a dog-like whining and sniffling noise.

  Nick arranges to meet Jazz at a bar they both know, off Seven Dials. When he gets there, she has not, but this is quite normal; Jazz is almost always at least one third of an hour late, and often more.

  On the ‘chewy’ line, which is what she calls her “spearmint gum” mobile, (it is bright green) she had sounded rather hurried and not given details. However she has never before suggested, as now, such a quick meeting. Just as she is always late, she has always, before, given him several days’ notice.

  After half an hour has elapsed, he actively expects her arrival. But Jazz does not arrive.

  Another half hour goes by. Another quarter.

  Nick gets himself another drink, and calls first the chewy line, then her everyday mobile. Neither produces an animate Jazz, and Nick leaves no message.

  He finishes his second drink. It is now nearly ten o’clock. Some of the smaller earlier theatres are turning out, and a sleety drizzle is slanting down.

  Jazz has never stood him up - few of his ‘dates’ ever have - so he gives her another twenty minutes, then walks off quickly for the tube.

  When he gets back to the flat, he tries the ansa-machine to see if there is any new message from Jazz, whose full name is Jasmina. There is not. But he does then find the previous message he had assumed would be from Angela (the madwoman) about Laurence.

  It had not been from Angela. It is not even a woman’s voice.

  “I have something for you,” says the masculine voice which he does not recognise. “I have something that it is impert-iv you receive.”

  That is all the new voice says. The number has been withheld. Nick plays it back twice more, taking in each time the clipped corruption of the word - presumably imperative - to impert-iv.

  I have something for you. I have something that it is impert-iv you receive.

  The voice has a vague accent. It might even be French, but Nick has no real idea. A wrong number is the most likely explanation.

  He tries Jazz again about midnight, but gets nothing now, not even the recording, on either of
her lines.

  During the night Nick dreams the black waiter from Covent Garden, dressed as an African prince in leopard pelts, gold and ivory, tells him sternly that the piece of ivory he has passed to Laurence is a carrier of ill fortune. It must not be handled for more than a couple of seconds, and never given to anybody one cares about. In the dream Nick knows that he has given, or will be going to give, the ivory to Laurence for just that reason.

  Asleep, Nick is uneasy. But none of the dream scenario is true. The waiter did not give him any ivory. No one gave him any ivory. And no one ever warned Nick that the ivory carried anything, was worth anything good or bad. It was a story he invented and tossed at Laurence and Laurence never even believed it. He had only kept it, and taken it away with him, as another joke.

  6

  Nothing else happens, and two further days pass, with adjacent nights. Nobody calls, which vacuum includes Jazz. Nick does not, now, attempt to contact her. He guesses perhaps he has been removed from her itinerary and she meant to tell him so in a nice way, but then more important aspects intervened. He remembers she paid him sixty pounds more than usual, after their last meeting. He does regret losing her, because she was rather charming and good company, and also he felt particularly pleased with her sexual response to him, the vast enjoyment he was able to give her. But then, this regret is only the sort of thing one might feel on leaving an interesting and lucrative job, when there are lots of others available that are similar, perhaps even superior.

  He meets Phil on the third evening. She calls only occasionally. A vivacious sporty girl, but her take on sex is quaintly kinky. Nick is always entertained by Phil.

  When he gets back, just before eleven, (Phil is an early riser for her job at the swimming baths), he has not been in the flat more than a minute when someone raps on his door. Nick has no bell, only the connection with the buzzer of the downstairs door in the lobby. This then is an internal visit from one of the building’s other tenants.

  Inevitably Nick recollects the man with the stolen drawer, who had lived in Number 14 a while. But Nick really suspects the caller will be Pond.