The Inside Out Man Read online

  “I’m just … ” I looked around, mumbled, “I’m fine.”

  I didn’t want to say another word to her. I retreated a step. All around me, balls were being smacked to and fro and drinks were being downed and carried and spilt and there was laughing and swearing and strutting and smoking and just sitting around, watching, waiting.

  “I’m sorry for bothering you,” I said. “I … I thought you were someone else.”

  She gave a snort and a laugh. “Okay. Whatever, man. Have a nice life.”

  She wasted no time shoving me into the back-alley of her mind, and focused on the BMX teenagers. The volume swelled. The lights got brighter. Harsher.

  I didn’t get it. All those nights at the bar. All our conversations. Toni? Had I heard wrong one night and then run with it? I pushed through the players in the pool hall, staggered downstairs, and flung myself into the dark. I looked left, looked right, then glided along the street like a shadow on the loose. I passed a bookstore, a Mexican grill, an antique shop, a travel agent, until I arrived at a barricaded hole in the wall—the pancake house once owned by the Sicilian, which I’d gone to as a kid. I’d run out of breath. I leant against a wall and retched. Nothing came out. Just a bit of spit.

  Groggily, I looked up.

  The Bijou, my old haunt, with its sign buzzing in blue cursive.

  I wiped my mouth with my sleeve, went inside.

  There were only four or five occupied tables out of a good fifteen, twenty. I beelined to the bar and ordered a double whiskey. I downed it, immediately ordered another.

  “You okay?” said the barman.

  I asked him the exact same question, and again downed my drink. He suggested I follow up with some tea. It was a joke, of course, and I laughed. I told him to run a tab, then took a seat at one of the tables at the back, and undid my top button. How could I have got it all so wrong? That first time, just before I’d met Leonard, had she in fact ignored me, or did she genuinely not know me? How could I have deceived myself so badly, an entire history of conversations and friendship and flirtations that hadn’t happened at all? It was scary: I must be full-on brass-band mad to have pulled off something like that. I felt the booze move through me. But I decided I didn’t want to be too drunk. I wanted my wits. A waiter approached. For the hell of it, I ordered a pot of camomile.

  Why was I still in this city? I could sit there and pretend I was catching up on old times, but there were no old times. Not in that place. Not in any place I’d ever been. Nostalgia is a shitty picture in a shiny frame. And that was the whole point, I saw. I needed to ditch it all and really disappear. Head for the airport. Fly to France, see if La Trémoille had a room for me, rent a car, drive to Carcassonne with its fantastical stone turrets. After that, head to Lyons, walk around a bit, smile at the locals, and have lunch in, what do they call it, a bouchon? Maybe even, at some point, I’d pop by Mont Saint-Michel and see where the souls of the dead hung out.

  Fresh air. Wide horizons.

  A real escape.

  My tea arrived.

  A man I recognised as the owner of the bar came on stage, thanked everyone for being there, with a reminder of an upcoming motorcycle charity show. After that, he introduced some musician, clapped like a circus seal, and exited stage right. A light beamed over the piano, and a kid I’d never seen before—barely into his twenties—took his seat. The suit he was wearing was a little looser on him than it should have been, and I wasn’t certain his pants and jacket were the same colour.

  He played, however, like a mad animal. Feverish. Urgent. I sat mesmerised, relishing what I’d always loved about jazz. It was all so unassuming. Just a guy doing what he loved. He was young, and somebody was paying him to do what he did best, which just about meant he’d won the grand lotto of life.

  Fifty minutes later, he stopped. He didn’t get up—or not straight away. I watched him as he sat there, arched over the keys, sweating, slowly returning to the world. Finally, he rose, moved through the crowd, and hit the bar. My waiter returned, and I told him to order a cup of tea for the talented musician.

  Borrowing the waiter’s pen, I grabbed an old receipt and wrote turn around on the back. I instructed the waiter to leave it on the pianist’s saucer. I waited, drinking my own tea, wondering if he’d take me up on my invitation. Ten minutes later, after a few tequilas, the young pianist got his tea, along with the note.

  His eyes swept the room, found me in my corner, and then he slowly and cautiously made his way over …

  64.

  I opened my eyes. I was back at Krymeer.

  How this had happened, I had no idea. But there I was, in Leonard’s crumpled clothes, lying on the top sheet of his bed. The room was hot enough for me to assume it was late in the day. I watched nomadic motes of dust move in a beam of sunlight. I could hear birds outside. The wind against the windows. The soft and benevolent tick of a wall clock.

  I sat up and looked around.

  Something was different.

  I couldn’t say what—not right away, at least—but it felt as if I’d been sleeping the entire time, or that I’d been awake the entire time and now I was sleeping. Unreal, or too real; I couldn’t decide. Had I really gone back to the city, or had I dreamt it? No, that was preposterous. It was all so lucid in my head. My senses were still tingling from the music and the booze. I could smell the cigarette smoke on my clothing—but not on my fingers, significantly. I stretched the muscles in my face as nebulous memories of the night encircled me, begging for confirmation: driving to the Crack Radisson, seeing some dead stranger on a gurney. Then Coby (or was it Toni?) suggesting I’d sat at that bar night after night and only imagined I’d chatted with her. And after that, well, I’d gone to The Bijou, where I’d listened to some kid pianist. Bought him tea. Invited him over.

  But then what?

  Krymeer was more than an hour away from the city, which meant I’d either driven myself back in some weird state of mind or been knocked out and brought back. It made no sense. Who’d have carried me inside, up the stairs, tucked me in? Which made me think: since taking up Leonard’s offer, had I ever woken anywhere other than his bedroom? On the night of Jolene’s dinner, hadn’t the same thing happened? Blacked out in public, woke up in that bed, in that goddamned house?

  The more I thought about it, the more it began to feel as if my trip back to the city hadn’t happened the previous night at all. The events of the night seemed to retreat further and further into the past, as if I’d experienced nothing more than a new dream of an old memory. One from years ago—dragged out of the filing cabinet, dusted off, and spruced up with a few fantastical flourishes, if only to fuck with my internal clock.

  I shook it off.

  I got up, rinsed my face, squeezed toothpaste into my mouth, slapped it around with my tongue, and spat it out. I dabbed my face with a towel and raised my eyes to the mirror. The good news, it was still me there. The bad news, it wasn’t anyone else. I was in deeper shit than I was allowing myself to grasp, as it hit me why I’d left the house in the first place.

  Howard. Leonard. Jolene.

  Had she come back with the police?

  Was my face already on a WANTED billboard?

  I went downstairs. There was no sign that anyone had been there. No crime-scene tape and no kicked-in front door. I headed for the library, expecting to see blood on the floor.

  Nothing.

  Not a smudge in sight.

  Leonard’s cronies must have been waiting in the wings: come in here like some kind of clean-up crew, got rid of every piece of evidence while I was asleep. And as for the smoking gun …

  The ceramic pot was back in its corner. Perfectly intact. My mind lumbered, labouring to make sense of it. I left the library, my eyes on the tiled floor, right to the back door, tracing the route I’d taken with the corpse. Not so much as a smear in sight—not even on the more porous concrete porch. The wheelbarrow I’d used (or almost certainly used), was sitting next to the vegetable patch, ex
actly where I’d first found it. Rusty and lined with soil, but nary a drop of blood. I looked around, imagining a dozen or so well-dressed men and women having a good cackle at my mad endeavours, and the dumb, confused look on my face. Of course, I saw no one: I was either completely alone out there—or they were looking on from some unseen spot. I composed myself, refusing to allow them the pleasure of witnessing my bumbling, and went back inside. I was about to take the stairs, when something made me stop at the dining room.

  Made me look inside.

  On the far wall, beyond the long dining table, hung a painting of a park—the one I’d noticed while sitting with Leonard in that very room many months before. A wide and rolling stretch of lawn, with large evergreen trees and a lake. People picnicking, enjoying the dappled shade, the freshness, the freedom. A girl with a kite. A man in a hat, reading a book under a tree. Two boys with paper boats at the water’s edge. And, in the background, a solitary figure in a black coat, standing apart from everyone. Faceless, his hands deep in his pockets—

  I’d been there—not to the actual place portrayed—but rather, I’d been in that goddamned painting. With Jolene. And Edgar.

  I dismissed it, hurried away. As I hurtled up the stairs, the framed photographs caught my eye: the man on the deck of the Britomartis. But no, not just any man; it was me, in black sunglasses, and hanging a banner of big white teeth. The man on a Friesian horse—this, too, was me. And among all the well-dressed folk, there I was, yet again, having the time of my other-dimensional life, grinning at the camera—

  I was losing my mind. Tripping.

  Something.

  I didn’t pause at the landing, didn’t look at Leonard’s door, just flew to the room with the sofa and the bar. I poured myself a double and drank it neat. I backed up and sank into the sofa behind me.

  Staring at the unlit fireplace, an unearned calm fell over me. There must be some reason for Howard’s disappearance, for my face being in the photographs. Maybe the whole thing was a hallucination? Or maybe I had been drugged in the city—and if so, how many people were in on Leonard’s scheme? The guests at Jolene’s party? Had I been drugged that night too? And what about the nightclub? Did Leonard really have such wide influence, an accomplice on every corner? There was still something missing.

  A whole other angle I wasn’t seeing.

  I got up, left the room, and went straight to the bedroom. I grabbed my travel bag and flipped it open on the sheet. I knew neither the reason for my pictures in those frames, nor the reason for the mopped-up floor, but I didn’t care. Not any more.

  Entering Leonard’s walk-in, I swept some shirts off their hangers. Grabbed a few pairs of pants. And shoes. I folded the items neatly and packed them inside my bag. I strapped on my watch and checked the time. If I hurried, I could be at the bank by one, draw the maximum amount of cash, close the account, and turn up at the airport by three. That’s what I’d do, I decided. The idea of leaving that house behind, of vanishing into the world, made my heart jog with anticipation. I saw myself standing beneath that big digital board of destinations, before heading off to some exotic place.

  I zipped the bag, checked the time again, and stood there. Shafts of light fell onto the bed and floor in bright frame-shaped squares. Just then, as if suddenly teleported into the room, an object on the dressing table caught my attention.

  A small, familiar box.

  A meticulously made artefact from a far more patient era. The longer I stared, the more certain I became: it was the same box given to me by the attorney. My mind tumbled; I couldn’t recall bringing it here. Unable to resist its pull, I stepped up to it, ran the tips of my fingers over the lid, examining the engravings. My eyes followed the line of its charming little tale—an eagle swooping down on a rabbit, which was chasing a carrot, which was being dragged by a bicycle ridden by a boy, chasing a girl ascending into the sky with wings, in pursuit of an eagle.

  I flipped the small brass latch and lifted the lid.

  A long, rusty key. I took it out and studied it from all angles. The attorney had hinted it might be some kind of symbol, with sentimental value. But I hadn’t bought any of that, and I certainly wouldn’t be wearing it around my neck.

  A thought flew into my head, sudden and without logic.

  This was followed by a strange urge, and I felt compelled to turn from the dressing table, key in hand. And so it was that I left the room, entered the corridor, and found myself standing before Leonard’s locked door. I took one more look at the key, stuck it in the door, and gave it a turn.

  Click.

  I held my breath.

  No. That wasn’t supposed to happen.

  This couldn’t possibly be.

  It wasn’t the same goddamned key I’d used to lock the door, the key Leonard had given me that first night, all those weeks and months ago.

  Slowly, I pushed the door open.

  With a long, whining creak, it swung wide.

  65.

  Standing at the entrance of the one room in the house that I hadn’t yet entered, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. A drab, unadorned cell? Perhaps a few items of clothing folded in a corner? A blanket on the floor? A stack of shitting paper? A partially decomposed body with an odour so strong I’d gag as soon as it hit me?

  No. There was none of that.

  None of what I was told would be there.

  And, most baffling of all, no Leonard Fry.

  Instead, what I got was a well-ordered, fully furnished bedroom. Quaintly suburban, entirely unlike any other room in the house. The walls were navy blue. In the corner, a three-quarter bed with a blue-striped duvet and three matching pillows. Beside the bed there was a table with a red lamp. An old-fashioned record player. A shelf of books. Everything clean and shiny. Immaculate. The large windows were framed by pale-grey curtains. On the walls, there was a set of posters—all featuring the same person: a pianist.

  I went in and studied the space, taking in each detail, breathing in the trapped scent of linen and wood and old books. I explored the inside of the cupboard and found piles of shirts and t-shirts. The types a trendy teen would wear. The stuff of jeans commercials.

  I crossed the room and stood at the bed, where I noticed a white envelope. It had been crudely opened, and was stacked with sheets of paper. I was about to reach inside, when I looked up and caught sight of the poster on the wall above the bed—

  I knew that man.

  I’d seen him before.

  But it wasn’t his face I picked up on; it was his right leg, which was sticking out of a specially tailored trouser bottom. The leg was bloated, and the skin looked pebbly. I looked around the room: in another poster he was stooped over a grand piano on a stage, sweating under the lights. In a third, he was sitting at a piano in a sound studio, resting his elbow on the lid. Again, his face didn’t flick any switches, but that diseased limb couldn’t be confused for any other. At the bottom of the poster was a signature, scrawled in blue ink.

  Sincerely, L. Fry.

  I looked to the next, and the next—

  Regards, L. Fry.

  Stay true, Lenny.

  Yours, Leonard Fry.

  I spun away from the wall.

  No—

  There’d been a mistake.

  There must have been a mistake.

  This man in the poster—he was not the man I’d met in the bar. Nor the man who owned the house, the man I’d made an agreement with. This poster-man—the “Leonard Fry” in these pictures—he was the man I’d met as a boy, sitting alongside my father and drinking warm Fanta in a living room that stank of mothballs and stale food.

  I looked at the old record player on the bedside table, saw the lone album with Leonard’s face on the cover. Carcassonne. Pointy turrets in the background. Sea Souls of the Dead: Live in France. I picked it up, slipped the vinyl out of the sleeve, set it down, and put the stylus in place.

  With a crackle, it began.

  A few notes in, I recognised the tune. />
  All those years ago, it had stuck in my head, and here it was again. The tempo picked up. A snare led the way. Bass and sax joined in. The stylus spun in its groove, and Leonard’s voice kicked in.

  He was singing about a woman.

  A woman who threw parties for strangers, who you couldn’t help but fall in love with, but who could never love you back, no matter how hard she tried, or even wanted to—or promised she would. It was the ballad of a woman so intensely drawn to the loneliness of others, she was fated to endure her own.

  She throws a helluva shindig

  Knows jus’ how to get the drinks in,

  And them all singin’,

  Til it sudd’nly sinks in,

  That we ain’t never met her before.

  She jabs like she knows us,

  Keeps toppin’ glasses,

  And it’s clear to us all,

  She throws a helluva shindig

  For every stranger she meets, see?

  So we ’n she ain’t ever alone.

  Sweet, sweet Jolene

  Sweet, sweet Jolene

  Jolene?

  My Jolene?

  I stumbled backwards, the music diffused, filling my being, and then, like a rogue wave, a memory crashed over me—clearer and more complete than ever before …

  … The attorney is watching as I study the box before me. It’s the one with the rusty key inside—courtesy of my recently deceased father. The fat man weaves his fingers into each other and sits back in his chair. It whimpers under his weight.

  “As I’ve already mentioned,” he says, “I don’t know the significance of that key, whether it’s for an actual door or drawer, or if it’s a memento of some kind. Whatever the case, your father made it very clear that you’re to have it. He made a big thing of it, too, far more than the, er … ”—he clears his throat and continues—“the more financially substantial part of his will.”

  I look up with a frown. “I don’t understand,” I say.

  The attorney chews his bottom lip, and nods.