The Tropical Issue Read online

  I knew before I turned, and before I saw the bifocal glasses.

  I remembered the wheelchair at the Lisbon plane.

  I didn’t know how, and I didn’t know why. But it was, of course, the Owner.

  Chapter 7

  Ferdy’s pal Johnson Johnson stood by the hospitality table sportingly provided by the Madeira airport authorities.

  He had a glass in one hand, and appeared to be freestanding, although there was a walking stick propped in the neighbourhood.

  He was not, as last seen, wearing pyjamas, but got much the same effect with a pair of check trousers and an oatmeal sweater in a struggling cablestitch.

  I had seen the pattern, done right, in the Personality Knitting Quarterly. I could swear to it.

  The black floppy hair was the same, and the tight black eyebrows over a pair of bifocals girdered together like church toilet windows.

  The bashed nose and lipless mouth were so ordinary that there would be nothing to see if you took his glasses off. Except, of course, for a lot of bad temper.

  He had made a few strides, considering. His base colour had moved from Sallow nearly up to Pale Caucasian Man. The shark conversation hadn’t altered.

  Kim-Jim took his hand off my shoulder and said, ‘You know Mr Johnson? He was on my flight from Lisbon. I was going to introduce you.’

  ‘From Lisbon?’ I said.

  Ferdy’s pal Johnson Johnson had put down his glass and was fingering bottles and watching me. ‘We found ourselves sitting together. Vodka?’ he said. ‘Still? Or chloride?’

  ‘Well, I’ll be damned!’ Ferdy said. ‘If she doesn’t want a vodka, I do. You didn’t tell me you were coming over. What were you doing in Portugal? Wearing that pullover? I bet they’ve bloody deported you.’

  ‘Dolly’s been here for weeks,’ Johnson said. ‘Had her papers to fix on the way. Sorry, Miss Geddes. Didn’t have time to tell Mr Curtis I knew you. Didn’t realise you were his Rita until the end of the flight. You like Madeira?’

  ‘Dolly?’ I said. Somewhere, I’d heard that name before.

  The glasses flashed. ‘Boats, unavoidably, are feminine,’ Johnson said. ‘You don’t like Madeira?’

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘A bit crowded.’

  Ferdy stood on my foot.

  ‘No need to worry,’ said Johnson. ‘Mr Curtis didn’t tell me anything I hadn’t found out before. Can I give a lift to anybody?’

  ‘My God,’ said Ferdy. ‘Is that your yacht in the harbour? Flying a British flag?’

  ‘So Lenny tells me,’ said Johnson.

  I looked outside. The car with the uniformed driver was still waiting. I said, ‘Is that your Daimler outside?’

  ‘I hope so,’ said Johnson.

  The twenty-four hours I spent in apartment 17b came flooding back to me. Names came back.

  ‘Where’s Dolly?’

  ‘Still refitting.’

  ‘Why don’t we send Lenny down to sail her out? He could take her to Tenerife and wait till you were ready . . .’

  And earlier than that: ‘Mr Johnson! It’s Natalie Sheridan. An old friend of Roger van Diemen.’

  I walked up to Ferdy’s pal Johnson, who was pouring vodka one-handed into four glasses, aided by Ferdy.

  I said, ‘Did Natalie Sheridan send for you?’

  The spectacles turned round, with tonic fizzing all over them. ‘Send for me?’ Johnson said.

  Ferdy held out a glass. ‘Don’t be an ass, darling,’ he said. ‘Natalie sent for Kim-Jim. But sending for Johnson is something even she can’t manage quite yet, poor dear. We hadn’t a clue he was coming. Though we ought to have known, if we were yacht-watchers. As to a lift . . .’

  I saw what he meant, because I’d thought of it too. The Daimler had smoked-glass windows. You could hide Kim-Jim behind them. You could equally murder him.

  I said to Johnson, ‘How well do you know Roger the Gunman?’

  ‘Roger van Diemen,’ said Ferdy patiently, as if it wasn’t obvious. ‘He’s been running about threatening to knock off both Kim-Jim and Rita. Believes they’re after Natalie’s money, or some such nonsense. Natalie persuaded him to get out of Madeira, but he won’t go if he finds out Kim-Jim has arrived. And he’s in the airport building somewhere now.’

  Johnson opened his mouth. Before he actually said anything, I had thought of something else.

  ‘He saw you!’ I said to Johnson. ‘That’s why he didn’t get on the bloody plane! Not because of Ferdy on top of me. But because . . .’

  ‘. . . of me on top of Ferdy on top of you?’ offered Johnson, frowning.

  Ferdy’s face cleared. He said, ‘Oh my God, that pullover’s awful,’ which he’d said already. Johnson, drinking, lifted his glass a little first, as though Ferdy had paid him a compliment.

  Then Johnson said, ‘I haven’t met van Diemen in years, and of course Mr Curtis is welcome to a lift. How will he get from here to the car? Air hostess’s skirt and blouse?’

  Men really are idiots. I said, ‘He’s far too tall. Put him in a trolley with a rug over him, and take him round the far side of the car.’

  The only one to object to that was Kim-Jim, who was embarrassed at all the fuss, and anyway didn’t really believe, I think, that he was in any danger, which meant that the paint on my face was still holding out.

  Then a porter had to be sent out for the uniformed Lenny, who brought us a rug and a trolley, and told Aurelio what was happening.

  Next, just as we were loading Kim-Jim into the blind side of the Daimler, someone had to go back to fetch my straw hat, which had fallen off in the VIP lounge.

  ‘Anyway,’ Ferdy said, ‘what’s so damned important about that lousy hat?’

  I explained.

  Ferdy said, ‘Well, come on. Aurelio’ll drive you to the sledge station and I’ll come and protect you from Eduardo. Unless I’m spoiling something?’

  Johnson’s man Lenny, getting on with it, packed the Owner into the passenger seat of the Daimler and skipped round the front to take the wheel. In the back, Kim-Jim was folded under the rug, sneezing at intervals.

  The Owner’s window slid down with a drone, and Johnson’s voice said, ‘Why don’t we all go? Mrs Sheridan’s butler can drive straight home now, and I can drop you both with Mr Curtis.’

  Ferdy likes Daimlers. He has at least one of his own, but this was a newer model. He said, ‘Don’t you want to get in and rest?’

  ‘It’s quite restful, sitting here,’ Johnson said. ‘I’m not sure I’m fully up to explaining Mr Curtis and the rug, though. Why not get in?’

  So Ferdy and I sent Aurelio home, and both got into Johnson’s car, putting our feet on Kim-Jim as on Bessie.

  The Daimler started off in frightening silence, like a stationary train when it’s the next one that’s moving.

  I said, ‘What about Bessie?’

  ‘With the Great Old English Shepherd in the Sky,’ Johnson remarked to the windscreen.

  I thought he liked Bessie. I began to say so. Ferdy kicked me, but got Kim-Jim instead on the ear, which at least must have stopped him worrying over who Bessie was. I still found it hard to forgive Pal Johnson travelling all the way from Lisbon with Kim-Jim Curtis and not letting on that he knew me.

  It depended, of course, on what Johnson’s interest in tall, nice-looking Americans actually was. I wished I could rely on Kim-Jim to tell me. I could do with a really big edge on Pal Johnson.

  Then Ferdy said, ‘Stop!’ and I thought he had read my thoughts and was going to kick me again.

  Johnson’s driver, better prepared, glanced in the mirror and then slewed the Daimler into the side and halted. Ferdy and I both stamped on Kim-Jim, who protested mildly between sneezes and got one lens out between Ferdy’s ankles.

  Ferdy said, ‘Didn’t you say you followed van Diemen in his own car? Where is it, then?’

  Good thinking, as my maths teacher would say. Banana director with offices all over the world doesn’t take a taxi to airports. He takes
his own car, and pays someone to drive it back for him. We were just beside the airport carpark.

  ‘Miss Geddes,’ said the Owner. ‘Describe Mr van Diemen’s car.’

  I did. When I finished, he apparently pressed a button, for Lenny the Uniform vanished.

  Ferdy and I took our feet off Kim-Jim, who was having difficulty blowing his nose, and a moment later, Lenny was back, reporting to Johnson.

  ‘The gentleman can sit up now, sir. Mr van Diemen has left the airport precincts. He returned to his car before the mechanic could drive it away. Said he had changed his mind about flying and would drive himself back to Funchal.’

  Johnson said, ‘Where does he stay in Funchal?’

  Kim-Jim, struggling up, knew. ‘There’s a small apartment in the office block in the Avenida Arriaga . . . Look, now it’s safe, I don’t need to trouble you. Why don’t we just get a taxi and let you go on your . . .’

  ‘No trouble,’ said Johnson. ‘Anyway, there’s the hat to return. We don’t want to upset Miss Geddes’s sledge-handlers. Or even Miss Geddes.’

  Kim-Jim grinned. He had his arm round my shoulder. ‘I see you do know Rita,’ he said.

  ‘Technically, no,’ Johnson said. ‘I have merely served my time, as it were, in the outer office of Missile Command. It appears the sledges are packing up for the night.’

  The Daimler drew to a halt and Lenny got out and opened a door, through which I was sorry to see that the smoke-grey windows had been hiding a smoke-grey landscape which was getting steadily darker.

  And right enough, that the wicker sledges were vanishing back to their stables, or perhaps, like Bessie, to the Great Old English Tit Wallow in the Sky.

  There was no sign of Eduardo among the few guys still hanging about in boaters and boots, but I got out anyway, and so did everyone but Johnson. There was a short scene with Kim-Jim, who refused to get back into the car, being already worn and torn, so he claimed, below the minimum legal tread, and weeping mohair.

  In fact, he had a point. No Demon car, we were quite sure, had followed us. And if Johnson had scared van Diemen off once, van Diemen wasn’t going to appear where Johnson was, even if he wanted a sledge ride.

  One of the boatered brigade said he’d give my hat to Eduardo, and would we like a free ride, which Eduardo had set up before he had to go down to his house, because his mother-in-law was having a baby.

  I kid you not. And I believed it. Even the inside of his hat pulsed with Portuguese sex.

  I wasn’t sure whether I wanted a free ride, but Ferdy was all for it, and Kim-Jim didn’t seem to mind. It would take about twenty minutes, he said.

  Really, the sledges were just wicker boxes, with a bench across and a well in front to put your feet in. I had seen one set off as we arrived, down a walled path that was too bloody narrow, to my way of thinking.

  A couple of guys in boaters ran behind. Their job was to steer, shoving the sledge by its high wicker sides and its back, and hauling the slowing-rope, and sometimes hopping on to a runner, one foot paddling or dragging.

  The road surface was paved with oval pebbles, set crossways to the path, and to begin with, ran along the high wall of the Belmonte Hotel, with no doorways or crossroads to bother about. Later, it got busier.

  So we got into this sliding basket. A couple of guys trundled it into position, and Ferdy and I sat down, with Kim-Jim between us. Then Ferdy said, ‘Hang on. Always be nice to the Management,’ and getting out, went back to the Daimler.

  The two sledge-hammers stood like Twaddle-Jim and Twiddle-John, looking offended. They had cardies over their white togs, and I didn’t blame them. Once the sun went down, it wasn’t hot any more: more like Rothesay.

  Ferdy came back, with the lamplight on his bald head and sideburns and smiling like Jaws. He said, ‘Want to bet?’

  I’ve lost money to Ferdy before. I looked at him.

  Kim-Jim knew Ferdy as well. Every make-up man knows Ferdy. Kim-Jim said, ‘I’m your man. If you want to bet, name it.’

  ‘Us against Johnson and Milligan. A race to the bottom, five hundred dollars each side. Winning team takes all. Rita? You’re rolling.’

  I might be rolling, but I wanted to know a bit more before I let Ferdy split the risk three ways. I twisted round.

  Johnson, who was risking all his money solo, unless Lenny was rolling, was already toeing the line, Lenny with him. Except that he wasn’t using a sledge, but his folding wheelchair.

  It gleamed in the half-dark, with his man Lenny’s hands on the back, and Johnson’s clasped on his lap like Mary Poppins. Fairy lights flashed on his glasses.

  I weighed the odds, as Ferdy settled beside me.

  Ours was the heavier vehicle, with three people in it, and two running behind it to help us.

  Johnson’s had his own weight and Lenny’s, but had rubber wheels against runners, and would steer, of course, like a pram.

  Our two guides knew the track, and their vehicle.

  Johnson had just arrived. Johnson might act the Owner, but who was he? Just a scratchy rich crock and his nanny.

  I said, ‘Count me in,’ and saw 17b’s bifocals flash, as if he was going to hand me a pencil.

  Then there was a lot of shouting, and someone stood on a bench, produced a big, dirty hankie, and dropped it.

  Kim-Jim, Ferdy and I linked arms and braced our feet in the trough of the basket. Behind us, our handlers flung themselves into a long, racing sprint, and hurled our basket off down the slope like a slalom start.

  They were supposed to come with us.

  Instead, with a bursting crack, the rope which linked the two runners frayed and parted. And the handlers, staggering back, cannoned into each other and sat, as the basket containing the three of us gathered speed and launched off downhill like a rocket.

  A rocket on runners, with no means of braking or steering. And embarked on a long, swooping descent to sea level.

  The sledge hopped and we yelled out, in triplicate. Fading behind us, the remaining sledge-hammers yelled too, in Portuguese. Birds twittered above us in the gloaming. Lights bobbed about us: garden lights, window lights, and a thickening layer of lamps far below us, as suburb ran into suburb and then into the middle of town and then into the sea.

  The slithering clack of the runners below us picked up speed. Became higher, and louder, and vibrated itself into a roar over the steep, polished cobbles. The wall beside me dropped away, and the wall beside Ferdy began, very fast, to become taller and blacker as we shot towards it.

  I threw my arms round Kim-Jim’s neck and flung myself to the rim of the sledge, dragging him with me. The runner under me scraped and groaned and flung off some angry red sparks before veering off with a whine to my side.

  The black wall flicked over and past Ferdy’s shoulder, and I heard a creaking bump and Ferdy’s curse as his corner hit it. The sledge lurched, slewed, lurched, slithered and then gathered speed again, sliding this time half sideways. The cobbles flew past like the ice at Cortina, and I changed my mind about jumping out.

  My teeth and kidneys knocked together and separated. My patchwork was full of clutching hands and my hands were full of Kim-Jim and Ferdy as we squashed together like the Three Muscatelles, panicking. Somewhere behind me, a hollow voice observed, ‘Rita!’

  God. I looked round.

  God in a wheelchair, bouncing over the cobbles dragging Lenny behind it, his heels grinding into the paving. God with a stick in his hand, aiming to throw it to me.

  Dog. Johnson’s stick. I caught it, just as Kim-Jim beside me yelled, ‘Ferdy!’

  A corner was coming.

  A sharp corner. A steep corner. And unless we all piled on Ferdy, we were about to climb the next house on my side.

  We all leaned on Ferdy. The sledge began to slew his way, complaining. The corner began to unwind.

  Halfway round, on Ferdy’s side, a car was standing.

  I screamed. Ferdy roared. Kim-Jim, with incredible presence of mind, snatched the stick from me a
nd passed it to Ferdy, at the same time leaping on top of me.

  The sledge, instead of making straight for the back of the car, made to crash into its side and would have done but for Ferdy, who fended it off with the stick crook.

  We ground into the car, and off it again, gathering speed. We hardly noticed, because suddenly Ferdy rose up rigid like Adam going to God, while our grasping hands combed down his cashmere. Kim-Jim seized his ankles and hung on while Ferdy went on saluting and rising, and saying solemn words in an unusual voice.

  Then there was a clatter and Ferdy collapsed on the wicker and slid back gasping and gulping beside us.

  His stick had caught in the parked car’s door handle.

  What’s more, the idiot had let it go. ‘Unless,’ he was croaking, rubbing his shoulder, ‘you want a bloody runaway car behind us as well? Just say so. I can go back and fix it.’

  The sledge, redirected, ran towards the entrance of the house on my right, up a step and away again. Through the half-open door you could see an old Singer sewing machine on the floor, with a lot of men sitting sewing around it.

  Their legs were crossed. They couldn’t get up in time to do anything.

  A dog appeared and got out of it, fast. We jarred over a sewage cover, met a pot-hole, and skimmed a row of fluttering cords, guarding a ditch repair. Houses appeared on both sides below us, with doorways and people.

  The road got steeper. On Ferdy’s side, two fat women came out of a house and began to walk down the road, carrying shopping baskets. They stopped to talk to a man pushing a bicycle, with a spade over his shoulder. I screamed, and they turned round slowly, still talking.

  I saw the whites of their eyes as we came hurtling towards them. The women leaped for the doorway. The man had more presence of mind, or his bike wasn’t paid for. He swung down his spade, and as we came towards him, bashed it hard at the wicker side nearest him.

  Ferdy yelled, and the sledge swung out to the middle again. A crossroads was coming. Beyond it, the incline became a drop, running down between street lights and lit windows and people. As the crossroads approached, a car drove sedately over, from my side to Ferdy’s. A bus followed.