Nocturnes_ Five Stories of Music and Nightfall - Kazuo Ishiguro [63]
“It’s all right. It’s all right. It’s a man.” There was a pause, then he said: “I thought for a moment it was something else. But it’s a man. With a bandaged head, wearing a night-gown. That’s all it is, I see it now. It’s just that he’s got a chicken or something on the end of his arm.”
Straightening up, I instinctively started to stretch out my arms in a shrugging motion. My right hand still being inside the turkey beyond the wrist, the sheer weight brought the whole arrangement back down with a crash. But at least I’d no more worries about concealment, so I went right at it, no holds barred, in an effort to extricate both my hand and the statuette. Meanwhile the man went on talking into his phone.
“No, it’s exactly what I say. And now he’s taking his chicken off. Oh, and he’s producing something out of it. Hey, fella, what is that? An alligator?”
These last words he’d addressed to me with admirable nonchalance. But now I had the statuette in my hands and the turkey fell to the floor with a thud. As I hurried towards the darkness behind me, I heard the man say to his friend:
“How the hell do I know? Some kind of magic show maybe.”
I DON’T REMEMBER how we got back to our floor. I was lost again in a mess of curtains coming off the stage, then she was there pulling me by the hand. Next thing, we were hurrying through the hotel, no longer caring how much noise we made or who saw us. Somewhere along the way I left the statuette on a room-service tray outside a bedroom, beside the remains of someone’s supper.
Back in her room, we flopped down into a sofa and laughed. We laughed till we were collapsing into each other, then she got up, went to the window and raised the blinds. It was now light outside, though the morning was overcast. She went to her cabinet to mix drinks—“the world’s sexiest alcohol-free cocktail”—and brought me over a glass. I thought she’d sit down beside me, but she drifted back towards the window, sipping from her own glass.
“You looking forward to it, Steve?” she asked after a while. “To the bandages coming off?”
“Yeah. I suppose so.”
“Even last week, I didn’t think about it so much. It seemed such a long way off. But now it’s not so long.”
“That’s right,” I said. “It’s not long for me either.” Then I said quietly: “Jesus.”
She sipped her drink and looked out of the window. Then I heard her say: “Hey, sweetie, what’s the matter with you?”
“I’m fine. I just need to get some sleep, that’s all.”
She kept looking at me for a while. “I tell you, Steve,” she said eventually. “It’s gonna be fine. Boris is the best. You’ll see.”
“Yeah.”
“Hey, what’s wrong with you? Listen, this is my third time. Second time with Boris. It’s gonna be just fine. You’re gonna look great, just great. And your career. From here it’s gonna rocket.”
“Maybe.”
“No maybe about it! It’ll make such a difference, believe me. You’ll be in magazines, you’ll be on TV.”
I said nothing to this.
“Hey, come on!” She took a few steps towards me. “Cheer up there. You’re not still mad at me, are you? We were a great team down there, weren’t we? And I’ll tell you something else. From now on I’m gonna stay part of your team. You’re a goddamn genius, and I’m gonna make sure things go well for you.”
“It won’t work, Lindy.” I shook my head. “It won’t work.”
“Like hell it won’t work. I’ll talk to people. People who can do you a lot of good.”
I kept shaking my head. “I appreciate it. But it’s no use. It won’t work. It was never going to work. I should never have listened to Bradley.”
“Hey, come on. I may not be married to Tony anymore, but I still have a lot of good friends in this town.”
“Sure, Lindy, I know that. But it’s no use. You see, Bradley, that’s my manager, he talked