The Good Liar Page 7

  reached the exalted heights from which you can instruct others to

  deliver the facts, leaving you to add the instinct and the inspiration.

  2

  Later the same day Stephen sits at Betty’s kitchen table.

  ‘Just how can you stand him?’ he asks her.

  ‘It’s not at all as you imagine,’ she replies calmly. ‘It’s turned out pretty much as I envisaged.’

  ‘But he’s repulsive. How can you bear being so close to him?’

  ‘I’ve experienced worse things. You may not like him. I can under-

  stand that. But I make my own choices, thank you very much. I

  don’t require your permission or blessing. You may wish to consider respecting my views.’

  She speaks these words not as a reprimand but evenly and firmly

  as everyday observations.

  ‘I’m sorry. But he’s big and he’s shambolic and he smells.’

  ‘He smells slightly because he’s old. He smells because of his age, 49

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  seeping from his bones. We die of old age from the inside out, rot-

  ting gradually as we get older. It’s not something he can necessarily help.’

  ‘You don’t smell.’

  ‘I suppose I’m to take that as a compliment. I’m a woman. And

  perhaps women are different from men in some regards, however

  much I dislike generalizations. Do I detect a touch of jealousy here?’

  Stephen is aware that his face is ablaze. He finds it difficult to

  deny.

  ‘But you aren’t with someone or apart from them because of the

  way they smell.’

  ‘Why not?’ asks Stephen sharply. ‘Why ever not? It’s as good a

  criterion as most.’

  ‘That’s not such a ridiculous observation,’ she says, smiling. ‘But other things come into play, you know. And I must make the odd

  compromise if I’m to see my way into the future.’

  ‘But is it worth it? With him, I mean? You know enough about

  him already.’

  ‘I’m quite prepared to talk about it. But I’m afraid you won’t

  budge me,’ she says with an implacable gentleness.

  ‘My main concern is for you. Is this really what you want? How

  can you be sure you’re safe? He does have a quick temper and he’s

  still strong for his age.’

  ‘Oh, he has and he is. But I can manage him. As you know, I have

  a shrewd idea what he wants from this relationship and his needs

  will act as a brake on his angry impulses. He’s very much in control of those impulses, I think. And to answer your question: this is very much what I want. I need this.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I just care for you so much.’

  ‘I know you do,’ she says fondly. ‘So the best thing is to fall in line with my intentions and to be pleasant to Roy. Not over- fawning;

  pleasant will do just fine. You should be able to do that, as you’re such a nice boy.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ he says.

  ‘It’s Gerald, isn’t it?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

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  ‘Gerald’s being difficult, isn’t he? Putting the pressure on.’

  ‘No more than usual. You know what Gerald’s like. And we do

  need to make headway.’

  ‘Can I help at all?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so. But thanks.’

  ‘I’m not decrepit yet, Stephen. I do know how Gerald’s mind

  works, after all.’

  ‘No. I have every regard for your academic expertise. And I know

  Gerald does too. Your views are critically important, of course. But you’ve no need to worry about Gerald. I don’t think weighing in

  would do much good.’

  ‘I’m assuming it’s his normal refrain on accuracy, attention to

  detail and verification?’

  ‘More or less.’

  ‘Well, he’s right in a way. But he does bore on the subject. Exactly the same when he was preparing his thesis. I think the most important thing in a researcher is a good heart. That’s what I used to tell my students, including Gerald. Objectivity is critical of course. But if one sets about with malign intent to mankind, or even indifference or entirely selfish motives, then that way madness lies. Gerald believes this too, beneath the verbiage. He stresses dispassion precisely because he’s so passionate himself. He has a good heart and

  so do you.’

  3

  ‘What’s the matter?’ asks Roy as Stephen peers through the wind-

  screen and the car makes its glacial progress towards the bypass.

  Though not exactly genial, Roy is not aggressively scornful. Maybe

  he too has had a pep talk from Betty. ‘You look as if you’ve had a

  hard day. Your face could turn milk sour.’

  Prompted by Betty, Stephen has embarked on an excursion with

  Roy, who needs to go to the garden centre. In the sketchy curricu-

  lum vitae that Roy has delivered verbally there is an obscure

  reference to a former role managing a nursery. He professes, at

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  least, a knowledge of plants and Betty is looking to revitalize the small patch of walled garden she has at the back of the mews cottage. Roy has taken on the project quite happily, but insists that

  Betty does not accompany him on his purchasing mission. Instead,

  while he does the job professionally, she may remain at home with

  the cleaning and ironing. But he requires a driver and this is where Stephen comes in useful.

  ‘Not really,’ says Stephen in as placatory a tone as he can muster

  while concentrating on the journey. ‘Just normal stuff. Work.’

  ‘You take it all too seriously if you ask me.’

  ‘It’s important to me. I believe in it.’

  ‘It’s just work at the end of the day. Your boss giving you a hard

  time?’

  ‘My supervisor.’ Stephen utters the corrective gently. ‘Kind of.

  Well, no. Gerald’s always like that. It’s just a tricky phase.’

  ‘Sounds like he’s a tricky character. And I’ve known a few in my

  time. Needs to have his card marked if you ask me. Tell me about

  this bloke you’re researching. What was his name again?’

  ‘John Graham of Claverhouse, later Viscount Dundee. Born in

  1648 and a key figure in the early Jacobite rebellions.’

  ‘The Jacobite rebellions? What were they exactly?’

  ‘The revolt against William of Orange and Protestantism and the

  fight to restore the house of Stuart to the throne. What’s interesting is how he goes down in folk history. He was known as Bonnie Dundee to the Jacobites, but the Presbyterians called him Bluidy Clavers because he exacted bloody retribution against their communities.

  He was a major influence on the Fifteen and the Forty- Five.’

  ‘What were they?’

  Stephen reflects that Roy seems to be feigning interest quite

  efficiently.

  ‘The two Jacobite rebellions of 1715 and 1745. Both crushed by the

  English. Graham was killed earlier, in 1689 in a battle that his troops actually won. That victory and Graham were vital shapers of the

  later rebellions. But Graham’s death was a critical fault line in

  them too.’

  Roy says, ‘What’s the point of this work? What’s the purpose?’

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  ‘Three things real
ly. How John Graham shaped the rebellions.

  Then there’s how the mythology and demonology have persisted.

  And lastly, what Graham was actually like behind it all. What drove him? What were the actual facts? Was he such a charismatic leader

  or a cruel criminal?’

  ‘The myth and the man?’

  ‘Exactly. That’s the key theme. For instance, a myth persisted at

  the time that Graham had made a pact with the Devil and was

  immune to lead shot. According to that, he was killed by a silver

  button from his own uniform penetrating his heart. That’s just one

  of the legends. Whereas perhaps the most important point really is

  that, had he survived, the Fifteen might have gone very differently, with his presence and expertise. It could have meant a very different Britain.’

  Stephen is surprised how gratifyingly fluent the patter is. Rather

  more fluent than his stuttering research has proved. Maybe he can

  do this, after all.

  ‘So why’s this Gerald giving you a hard time? You seem to know

  your stuff.’

  ‘It’s mainly technical. He wants me to speed up the validation of

  sources and data and to begin building a structure. It’s fine really.’

  ‘And what’s in it for you?’

  ‘With luck, a published paper that’s accepted after peer review

  and changes things, however minutely. With even better luck, a new

  historical perspective on the period.’

  ‘I mean, where does it get you?’

  ‘Oh, nowhere really, apart from being a major part of my PhD.

  Any published works will go out under Gerald’s name as my

  supervisor.’

  ‘Sounds dodgy. You want my advice, look after number one. You

  don’t want this Gerald stealing your glory.’

  ‘My world doesn’t work like that. Academics are connected and

  work on reputation. If I do a good job it’ll get round and I’ll stand a better chance of securing a good academic position.’

  ‘You want to watch yourself. Life’s not a rehearsal. You want to

  go out there and grab what you want.’

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  They have arrived at the garden centre. Stephen fusses about Roy,

  rushing around the car and trying solicitously to help him out of

  the passenger seat, but Roy is having none of it. Having extricated himself from the vehicle, he looks at Stephen sternly. But their tacit if fragile pact of cordiality holds and he forces a smile.

  Stephen pushes the trolley while Roy examines the plants

  expertly, pondering the labels carefully, feeling leaves, fingering soil.

  They move together from stand to stand, Roy peering while Ste-

  phen looks on, waiting for conversation that does not come.

  Eventually Roy, maintaining his equable tone, says, ‘Why don’t

  you clear off and let me get on with this? I can manage on my own.

  I can see you’re bored and you’re as much use to me as a chocolate

  teapot.’

  Stephen goes inside to contemplate uncomprehendingly twine,

  slug pellets, multicoloured reels of hose and garden lights, while

  Roy continues with his task, examining plants intently before selecting one in particular, transporting it in a shuffle to the trolley that is filling, and moving to the next stand. Stephen will be summoned

  eventually to wheel the teetering mass of greenery to the tills and then to load the car.

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  Chapter Five

  Berlin Alexanderplatz

  1

  ‘A holiday,’ exclaims Betty.

  ‘Oh yes,’ replies Roy with enthusiasm. ‘I could do with a bit of

  sun on my back. Spain? Portugal?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she says, ‘I need something to stimulate my

  brain. I thought a city break. And I’m paying, I insist.’

  ‘We’ll see about that,’ says Roy, not entirely convincingly. ‘New

  York, then. The Big Apple. All those museums. A Broadway show.’

  She laughs. ‘I may be a woman of means, Roy, but I don’t think

  my budget will stretch that far. Not if we’re to do it in style.’

  ‘Very well, then. Barcelona.’

  ‘I was thinking more central Europe. Prague, Budapest, Vienna

  perhaps.’

  ‘All right, then.’

  It is not what he would necessarily wish for, but she who pays the

  piper . . . And a break will set him up nicely for the summer. There is a chance that there may even be a spot of spring sun. She browses the internet while he sits with his paper and gives his monosyllabic responses to her bright suggestions.

  In the end, it is Berlin. He makes a late counter- bid for Rome, or Venice, or even Bruges. But Berlin it is to be. The city of the

  thousand- year Reich, of Kristallnacht, Frederick the Great, Check-

  point Charlie and the Brandenburg Gate. There’ll be enough history

  there to last them a lifetime.

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  2

  On a blissful spring morning they walk out of their smart, ultra-

  modern hotel and into the middle of it all. Unter den Linden rolls

  away before them towards the Brandenburg Gate, if they can ignore

  the sundry hawkers and beggars jabbering at them desperately in

  various forms of German. Roy, despite his years, is still imposing

  and a glare is all it takes. He wraps his big arm protectively around Betty’s shoulder and she smiles.

  ‘It’s all here,’ he says, waving his other arm expansively.

  It is Berlin as imagined, constructed on a heroic scale to convey

  the new national confidence of the late nineteenth century, broad,

  masculine, frightening, in grey stone. The street, however, is gashed along its sternum as the U- Bahn line is brought to this part of what was once East Berlin. Berlin is being rebuilt and the horizon is dominated by cranes. A new paradigm of German confidence is being

  constructed here, the technocratic new alongside the imperial old.

  They spend three hours in the Deutsches Historisches Museum,

  which is not exactly how Roy had envisaged it: Betty peering at each exhibit with exaggerated interest while he tags along with an

  ill- disguised bored impatience to which she seems happily oblivi-

  ous. Well, she used to an academic, he reflects as he looks at his

  watch, and he will shortly be able to sit down to a decent beer.

  But no: after a lunch of greasy bratwurst, smeared in garish mus-

  tard, bought from a street seller – a surprise, this, for Roy, given Betty’s dainty elegance – they are off again. They take the S- Bahn train and the bus to Charlottenburg to look at the palace and walk

  awhile in the Tiergarten district under budding chestnut trees, taking peeks at the large, silent villas protected by sophisticated security systems that line the genteel wide streets.

  ‘I wonder what it must have been like to live here, in the

  nineteenth century,’ she says, ‘or the early twentieth. Or the

  1930s. The decadence, the forced fun, the glittering soirées. All that wealth, that confidence. Little did they know what was to become

  of them.’

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  ‘Oh yes,’ he says, bored and sardonic at the same time. He is sur-

  prised by her energy and that light in her eyes. He thinks of himself as fit for his
age but finds his limbs are weary, and craves the privacy of his hotel room and a quiet nap. He can do without this too, all

  this enthusiasm. He has lived a life long and eventful enough to

  know exactly how it was and needs no visual cues. He begins to

  wish he had never agreed to this trip.

  ‘Oh dear,’ says Betty, and his attention returns to the present.

  ‘You look bored. And tired. Have we overdone it?’

  ‘A little, maybe,’ he replies with a tolerant smile.

  ‘Let’s get you back to the hotel, then, shall we?’

  She locates a cab and he dozes as their voluble driver, against the backdrop of talk radio, rails against the fools on the roads as he

  accelerates and brakes erratically. It is all the fault of reunification and Europe, he says, these people flooding here from the East. Roy

  feels fragile and hears his heart beating. He can almost imagine

  himself in another age.

  He gets his nap, but there is no time for a leisurely dinner as Betty has fluttered her eyelashes at the concierge and obtained tickets for the Berlin Philharmonic that evening. Roy sits with ill- disguised bad temper in the opulent new- fangled hall and, just, bears the flum-mery and the cacophony of the event: the pomposity of the

  orchestra and its strutting conductor, and the fat complacent patrons in Hugo Boss with their jewel- bestrewn elegant, thin accessory

  wives. The exaggerated finesse of the quiet passages and the fierce attack of the crescendos all meld into one discordant mess in his

  ears.

  At the door of the hotel he says, ‘I think I’ll take a turn before

  retiring, Betty. I’ve had that nap and unless I get a bit of fresh air I rather think I won’t be able to sleep tonight.’

  Betty says, ‘All right. I know all about lost sleep. Shall I come

  with you?’

  ‘Oh no,’ he replies, perhaps a tad too quickly. ‘That won’t be

  necessary. I’ll only be a minute or so. You get off to bed.’

  And so they say their goodnights and she goes to her room.

  *

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  Four hours later, he subsides with relief under the feather duvet in his room. He should know better at his age, he says to himself,

  partly with a chuckle and partly with an edge of self- pity. But there’s no fool like an old fool. He is €500 lighter, for no benefit. He knows where the bad parts of this city are and to enliven his trip he had gone back to the streets near the Ku’damm. Old businesses had died