The Blue Afternoon

'What's happening?' I said, full of angry curiosity. 'You can't keep this from me any more.'

'Oh, Kay, Kay, give me a moment.'

The car pulled away from the house. Paton Bobby had not lingered on the porch. Carriscant looked at me and managed a smile of sorts.

'I'm sorry, Kay… It's not fair, Kay, I know, but this was crucial, essential for me, my dear Kay, if you could only -'

'Stop saying my goddamn name!'

My vehemence seemed to shake him out of his patronising complacency, his sense of triumph. For some sort of victory had ensued in that house, long overdue, I suspected, and he was savouring it. In the event, he stopped talking and reached inside his coat and drew out a small leather wallet, which he opened. Inside it was the folded page of an illustrated magazine. I glimpsed an advertisement for a beer I did not recognise and some phrases in Spanish, or so I thought. Without further explanation Carriscant handed me the sheet and I spread it open on my knees. On the page there were six photographs with captions beneath them. The language was Portuguese, I now saw, and the pictures appeared to be of routine society occasions or news events. My eye caught a wedding, an arm-waving top-hatted politician making a speech, an elaborate villa damaged by fire. Carriscant's finger indicated the bottom righthand photograph. A man in te

'The actress?' I said.

'No, the woman two along from her.'

I peered closer. An elegant woman, in her fifties perhaps, still attractive, applauding, a faint ambiguous smile on her face. The focus was sharp, I could make out the paisley motif on her dress but I could not judge whether her smile was one of polite boredom or polite enthusiasm. Between her and the actress was an elderly man with white hair in a dark suit; on her other side a naval officer of some exalted rank; the other figures were blurred. No-one else apart from the actress and the te

Carriscant took the page away from me and folded it carefully, slipping it back into its wallet.

'That is her,' he said simply and with curious authority. 'I was never sure, never really sure, that's why I needed to find Paton. He was the only one who could confirm it.'

'Confirm what?'

'That she was – that she is – who I thought she was.'

'And he did?'

'Without hesitation. Without a moment's hesitation.' He let a slow shuddering breath pass from him. 'And now I know. You can't imagine what it's like, after thirty-three years.'

'Dr Carriscant, you have to tell me what you're talking about. There's no point if I don't-'

He held up a hand to stop me and then breathed in and out, a dozen deep breaths as if to invigorate himself, as if he had been asleep for a long time. It was most irritating.

'All this time,' he began, 'I thought she might be dead, you see. Thought I'd never know what happened. But then I found this picture, by some… some miraculous, some devious twist of fate. And now I know she's alive.'

'But the picture's almost ten years old.'

'But she's alive. She looks – ' Tears bulged at his lids, his voice thickened. 'I know she is waiting for me.' He said this with adamantine confidence, and then turned to me.

'We'll go and find her.'

'We? What're you talking about?

'You and me, Kay – dear Kay. We will go to Lisbon and find her.'

ELEVEN

It is hard to find a small cemetery in Los Angeles. And I was set on my son being buried somewhere small and private, a place where there would be few passers-by, where there would be fewer incurious glances than in some multi-acre necropolis or the vast landscaped death park that is the norm.

I found an old, partially rebuilt mission at the north end of the San Fernando Valley where, by dint of a hefty donation to the restoration fund, I was provided with a plot in one corner, shaded by a grove of eucalyptus trees. I go there from time to time, about once a month, trying not to make a ritual out of my visits, in good moods and bad, but inevitably the place has forged its associations (I have no real memory of him, after all) and now it is the rattle of dry leaves, the tomcat smell of eucalyptus, even the filigreed shadow of sun through branches, that conspire to remind me of my dead son.

I spent some time on the headstone also: what does one inscribe when a life has only spa

Mrs Luard Turner wore a white fox wrap with her aquamarine suit even though the day was hot and the sky above was a changeless blue. She was heavily made up too, like an actress, I thought, with a thick base of panstick and powder over skin that was begi

'You'll notice the house has many closets,' I said, 'and that many of them are twice as large as is normal.'

'What? Why, yes, I did think -'

'The idea, you see, is that there should be no clutter. Everything can be stowed away.' I smiled at her, I was starting to hector, I knew, a habit I fall into when I suspect someone is not really paying attention. 'I can't stop people owning possessions, but I can encourage them to keep them out of sight.'

'Oh, sure,' she smiled back, uncertainly. 'I, ah, like to be tidy too.'

'Everything in this house has been thought through, Mrs Turner. Every proportion is precise. Wherever possible I have built the furniture in – like the kitchen, like that unit of drawers and shelves in the living room-because you simply ca

'I'm sorry? Eeth what?'

'- you can't just put in ordinary furniture, your average sofa, armchairs, etcetera.'

'I can't?'

'Where you need new furniture I would ask you – actually, I would beg you-to go to specialist furniture makers. Order items that will suit the house, you'll never regret it. I can give you half a dozen names of-'

'Mrs Fischer is very proud of her house,' George Fugal interrupted with a nervous laugh.

'Oh, sure,' Mrs Turner said, looking around. 'Ah, is the bathroom functioning?'

I showed her where it was.

'It's a done deal,' George said. 'She's crazy about the place.'

'Could have fooled me. Is she all right? She seems sort of distant, not in touch. Is there -'

'Kay, I have ten per cent in escrow. She's not fooling around.' He looked nervously over his shoulder and lowered his voice. 'Will I be able to hear the noise of the flush? I mean here, in this room?'

'Probably. Why?'

'Could we go downstairs? It makes me uncomfortable, you know, when she comes out – I hate that moment.'