Tree of Pearls. Louisa Young

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СКАЧАТЬ want to talk to me. He’s been avoiding me all week.’

      ‘Oh. Does that mean—’

      ‘It means he wants me out of the way. I was a little insistent with him. He said – well, he confirmed what he’d told you, that Eddie has absconded from the scheme, that Interpol are upset about it, the Egyptians are doing what they can but they’re very taken up with the anti-terrorist stuff since the massacre at Luxor, and as it appears that he’s left the country they are quite pleased not to be bothered. He said your boys seem to be in the clear. Everybody in Luxor knows they’re OK, and they’re all in shock there anyway and not knowing where their next crust is coming from because the tourists have just disappeared. And he said I was not to worry my pretty little head about it, but get on with this insurance fraud like a good boy.’

      I pictured Luxor, empty of visitors. How we put ourselves in other people’s hands. How we suffer when they leave.

      ‘What insurance fraud?’ I asked, absently.

      ‘My job. You know. What I do. This complicated boring bloody insurance thing. You don’t want to know.’

      It’s true. I didn’t.

      ‘But if you were working all that time on Eddie, why are you off it now?’

      ‘Because it’s out of our hands, anyway – we’re the regional crime squad. Witness protection is nothing to do with us. Oliver’s just keeping track of it. It’s bureaucracy. And pride. No one can quite let go of a catch like Eddie. And resentment. It was a fucking insult when he got cut this deal, actually. Those who knew – Oliver, and me – were insulted on behalf of the other lads, too, because a lot of work went into this, as well as a lot of taxpayers’ money. Though of course I shouldn’t know anyway. So I can’t complain, or have an opinion. Except to Oliver.’

      ‘But why is he cutting you out?’

      ‘That I don’t know. That I don’t know.’

      We sat in silence for a moment.

      Big bony hands wrapped round the beer bottle. I spend half my life round this table.

      ‘Does he … does he think that you’re too closely involved with me, and I’m too closely involved with it, if you see what I mean?’

      ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘Could be.’

      I would be sorry if that were the case. I don’t like to see Harry feeling sidelined; I wouldn’t want it to be because of me. And I want to be uninvolved. I was becoming uninvolved. I thought I had done so well. But now it’s back, but it’s all so intangible, I don’t know what to do. Live with it? Is that the moral of the story? Learn to live with it?

      ‘I rang Sarah,’ I said.

      ‘I thought you weren’t going to,’ he said. Not unkindly.

      ‘I wasn’t.’

      ‘What did she say?’

      ‘That everyone’s fine and the police have gone. But she didn’t want to talk to me.’

      ‘Do you mind?’

      ‘No. I don’t need to talk to her. She says they’re OK, Oliver says they’re ok, so I don’t need to worry. It’s only them I felt bad about.’

      So why do I still feel bad?

      Because I’m disappointed. Because if Sa’id had been in trouble I could have gone and rescued him and …

      Oh shut up.

      And because I can feel Eddie tweaking. He may not be tweaking me directly, the chain may not be round my neck, but it’s on the floor beside me, I can hear it tripping up people I love. He’s still out there.

      ‘Chrissie rang me,’ I said.

      ‘Yikes,’ said Harry. ‘The mad lady. How is she?’

      I told him. He laughed. ‘Oliver did that too. But he’s too proud to admit that that’s what he was doing. Just went round saying to everybody: “I haven’t always been very … well anyway sorry.”’

      ‘She was kind of sweet,’ I said.

      ‘Well, off the booze, away from Eddie, who knows.’

      ‘Still mad though. Wanted me to confide in her.’

      He laughed and laughed. ‘Doesn’t know you very well then,’ he said.

      ‘What’s that meant to mean?’

      ‘Oh, you know.’

      ‘No, I don’t.’

      ‘Mrs Do-it-Yourself,’ he said.

      ‘Well who the hell else is going to do it?’ I said, crossly. It pisses me off, when people castigate my naturally independent cast of mind, when they should know full well that I have nothing else to depend on anyway.

      ‘Yeah. Anyway you’re getting better.’

      Then I got a bit crosser, because I don’t like to be judged, specially not by an emotional fuck-up like Harry (though actually he is getting better too). But we cheered up again, then it was time for him to go, and as he stood up he put an envelope on the table, and looked at it, and looked up at me.

      ‘What’s that?’ I said.

      ‘Five hundred quid,’ he said.

      I raised an eyebrow.

      ‘I’m getting it estimated properly – there’s a proportion of my salary that is, umm, the proper amount. But in the meantime.’

      I hadn’t even thought about money. Jesus, he’s going to support us. Well, her.

      Ha ha. I’m being helped.

      ‘Thanks,’ I said. There was a tiny voice inside that said, ‘What, you think I can’t do it alone? I’ve done it without you for years and I don’t need your bloody money thank you very much …’ but that was some other voice, nothing to do with anything. ‘Do you want to back-date it?’

      For a moment he looked worried. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘Yeah. I mean – I don’t want to barge in. But whatever you need. Do you need more? Have you got debts? Because I can, absolutely. I mean, up to a point.’

      ‘Fuck off,’ I said, kindly. ‘I’m not telling you about my financial situation.’

      ‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘But I mean it.’

      ‘Thank you,’ I said. And meant it.

      If I’d ever imagined this scene I would have imagined that Harry would look sheepish. But he didn’t, not in the slightest. He looked everything a man should under such circumstances. Courteous, firm, a little proud. Decent. But the word made me laugh, because I remembered very clearly how very indecent he can be when he wants.

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