Shooting Star Read online

  2 - London, now

  When God made the world, he forgot about afternoons. Mornings are for work and good intentions. Nights are for frivolity and betrayal. But afternoons...

  Afternoons are a bridge to be crossed and there’s no hope if you look at the chasm below. On such an afternoon as this Steven could swear there was a voice on the other side of the sky that wanted to speak to him. If he strained and strained he almost caught an echo. He didn’t know what the voice was whispering: his name, another person’s name, possibly just ‘You fool’. He had listened for the voice in half the God-forsaken places of the world when the afternoon’s minutes no longer flowed smoothly; until he had begun to doubt even his sanity.

  She shouldn’t have insisted they meet in the afternoon. London spread in every direction, ten million people, the throb of their lives in the air. Here in the park it was still.

  She’s not coming. That’s what the afternoon sky whispered to him. When he had telephoned the Bayswater Terrace Hotel, this meeting place had been Ilona’s suggestion. ‘That tiny lake where fathers sail toy boats.’ No, she wouldn’t come to his house, she would lose the way. No, they shouldn’t meet at her hotel, some-where more private; away from Gyorgy and Judit and Eva and other prying eyes (though this caution was uttered only to herself). So, in the middle of Kensington Gardens by this toy boat pond with the whole of London exercising its dog — here was her private place. ‘Oh, I can’t wait to see you again, Istvan,’ and her voice had been breathy and excited.

  And I won’t wait to see her, Istvan protested. But he knew he deceived himself. He would wait for her because she was Ilona Kisfaludy.

  He looked for her, across the Round Pond, towards Kensington Palace, over by the Gothic space-rocket named Albert. There was a fine perspective down an avenue of oaks where the fallen leaves were heaped beside the path. He watched a swirl of leaves and a moment later the wind hit him, a sudden gust heavy with rain. There was no shelter and he toyed with the idea of walking away. But he had to see her. It wasn’t so much that he anticipated happiness or pleasure. This was something he was moved to do by a power within him, much as birds must mate in spring, or a seed shell cracks open and the shoot emerges. He had a vision of Ilona in his mind: not under the harsh spotlights with the clothing ripped from her; but turning towards him, her skin changed to silver by the cold dawn light coming through a window, her face at once grave and joyful.

  A man came scurrying with little steps, almost dancing to music that drummed inside his head, a small man and so thin he could have been blown by the wind. He pirouetted with his short raincoat flapping round his knees and his elbows tucked against his sides and then he halted by Steven. He was grinning hugely as if the wind and wet were a delight. His skin was ebony and each raindrop glistened in sharp focus.

  ‘It’s a she-rain, right?’ He shook his shoulders. There was spray, as when a dog shakes itself over you, and the man grinned again.

  ‘She-rain?’ The phrase was new to Steven.

  ‘Sure. Takes you by surprise, blows up from nowhere, makes you sopping wet, your clothes all soaked through right down to the skin, and then she’s gone. Fickle, that’s a she-rain. In Jamaica we’re never worried. When a she-rain comes we use a banana leaf for umbrella.’ He covered his head with a newspaper drawn from his raincoat pocket. His eyes roamed across the sky above the treetops. ‘Never worried,’ he repeated. ‘In ten minutes the sun shining again.’

  That was optimism Steven couldn’t share, not in October, not on a Sunday afternoon, not in a park she had chosen for an appointment she wouldn’t keep. Unless she was watching now from behind a tree trunk. Some old friends you meet again and know at once it is a mistake, the gap has been too long, different experiences have turned you back into strangers. Ilona could be sizing him up, could even have sent this little dancing man to engage him in talk. Glancing over his shoulder he could see no one stealing a look at him.

  There was another gust and the water ran in rivulets down the shining black skin. ‘Oh, this is a she-rain in a temper.’

  ‘The sun won’t be shining again, not in ten minutes, not in London,’ Steven told him.

  ‘Not in London, you speak the truth.’ Even this thought appeared to give him pleasure and he beamed again. Steven, with his professional’s eye, noticed how the raindrops on his cheeks refracted the light so that the deep black skin was spotted with grey. ‘What country are you from?’ the other asked.

  ‘I’m British,’ Steven said in a tone that snapped shut after the words. That was something he couldn’t stand, questioning his faultless accent, his status, his whole person. ‘What did you think?’

  ‘No offence, man,’ the Jamaican said and turned aside because perhaps up in the sky there was some hope of a brighter future.

  There are those whom God lets choose their exits and their entrances with perfect timing. It was at that moment she came helter-skelter along the path from the Orangery, crying out: ‘Istvan! Istvan!’

  Ilona flung her arms round Steven and hugged and kissed him on both cheeks and peered at him, holding him by his hands and leaning back. For good measure she hugged him again. All the while she kept up a voluble stream of Hungarian.

  ‘Istvan, you have no idea of the awful subterfuges I had to use to get away. I was like a prisoner in the hotel. I came creeping downstairs and suddenly there were a thousand eyes on me and voices calling out, “Ilona, Ilona, we’re just going to look at Buckingham Palace, do come.” And Janos said (Janos is the serious one), “And after that a visit to Karl Marx’s tomb,” and he couldn’t comprehend why everyone laughed. And Gyorgy said he would go up and fetch my coat. So I, my dear, had to pretend I had a rip-saw of a migraine, just gasping for an aspirin before I slunk away to my darkened room again. And then it was like a Feydeau farce with Judit coming to ask what was the matter and Gyorgy knocking on my door and announcing he’d decided not to go and gawp at some stupid relic of feudal times and then Feri popping in to say I needed camomile tea and Gyorgy couldn’t decide whether to search among the closed shops of London for camomile tea or stay and mop my forehead. And the noise of them was enough to give a baboon a headache so I shooed the lot out. And then, after ten minutes, down the back stairs and out through the kitchen like a thief. Oh madness! I ended up feeling positively criminal, with secret fears and clammy hands, which is ridiculous. Why shouldn’t I see my friends? There is no rational reason but of course it is not a question of being rational, it’s a feeling of guilt and I cannot fathom why I should feel that. Am I doing anything wicked? Is there something shameful in meeting an old friend? Well, is there?’

  But Ilona didn’t wait for an answer. She linked her arm through Steven’s and threw her other arm up in a gesture that would carry to the highest of the gods in the theatre. Now it was English she spoke with the same sweep of enthusiasm: ‘Look, it’s marvellous, Istvan, the sun has come out, it’s shining down on us and it’s a glorious happy wonderful and altogether amazing day.’

  Indeed the sun had come out and shone without much confidence from between fat meringue clouds. So there is some balance in life after all, Steven decided: she had come and the she-rain had gone.

  ‘This is unbelievable,’ she said, and though her English was very good, she had too much bubbling up inside her and it came out quicker in Hungarian. ‘Look at the ducks. What are their names, do you know? Oh, I don’t mean the mallards, everyone knows mallards. But there are shovellers and waders and things like that, and it doesn’t matter how often I’m told, the names simply fly out of my head. They are so adorable and I don’t know how anyone can bear to shoot them. It is heartless and cruel, though to be honest when they are roasted with a sauce of red wine and orange juice...No, I mustn’t. And that poor little boy is crying because his sail-boat has blown over. Istvan, please, you must do something about his little boat. I cannot bear to see children crying, and especially not when it’s so beautiful with the sun and the ducks and seeing you again after all these ye
ars. Oh Istvan, it truly is you?’

  Even an actress runs out of breath. She paused and considered Steven again, her head tilted on one side and leaning back to get a fuller view of him. In her stance too there was the extravagance of someone who acted in the live theatre, not just in front of the TV cameras for a two-shot. She was taking deep breaths and her cheeks were flushed from excitement or running. Or maybe the flush had come from nerves. Or maybe she was acting and not really pleased to see Steven at all. There was no telling.

  ‘Steven,’ he corrected. She seemed puzzled by his answer, forgetting she’d asked a question, and he said: ‘I’m not Istvan any more. I changed from Istvan Ketesc to Steven Curtis.’

  Ilona ran her eyes over his face, searching there to discover any other changes, while she tried out the new name: ‘Steven, Steven, Steven. Well hello Steven.’

  Satisfied, she gave him another hug, greeting this new person all over again. ‘But why are you looking at me like that?’ she demanded.

  ‘How am I looking?’

  ‘Like an idiot, mon vieux. Just like a bridegroom waiting at the altar. Eager, pleased with himself, frightened at being trapped — all the emotions mixed up in one big cocktail.’

  ‘If I’m a bridegroom...’ Steven began and kissed her on the forehead and then on the mouth. She let him do it, though without taking part. ‘There! I’m delighted.’

  ‘To see me again?’ Ilona looked up at him. ‘A smile! Wonderful!’ She grinned in return. She had a face that had always been beautiful: a full mouth and high wide cheekbones that looked to come a good way east of Hungary. Steven remembered that much. She had added an adult’s artifices. Close-to he noted the beauty spot on her left cheek. She had accentuated her dark eyes with eye-shadow and liner and surrounded them with extravagant brows that were almost complete semi-circles. This lovely and mobile face had been transformed into something memorable by her hair. It was black and very short, sculpted close to her skull, coming forward in a point over her forehead so that her face was framed into a perfect heart shape.

  He stared in her eyes, those dark eyes of hers, and was startled by their depths. The bright actress look had vanished and at the back of her eyes he could see the long-ago shy girl. And deep inside there was something more; he couldn’t say what. The seconds passed, stretched out by the treacherous afternoon, until her eyes went flat and abruptly she turned.

  ‘Quick, Steven,’ she shouted, ‘before it gets away.’ Her lithe figure darted off. She was clothed all in black — black jacket, black sweater, black cord slacks. With movements from some obscure modern ballet her black limbs twisted and jerked, lunged and swooped. She swung round, triumph radiant on her face. She held a leaf. She called out across the grass: ‘That’s January.’

  When Steven had caught her up she commanded: ‘Guard it. Keep tight hold of my prize. Whatever you do, don’t drop it.’

  It was an oak leaf, the colour of the sand when the tide’s gone out. He asked why.

  There was instant shock on her face. ‘Steven, Steven, Steven! Didn’t little Istvan do this as a boy?’

  He shook his head.

  She was scornful. ‘Each autumn you must catch twelve falling leaves before they touch the ground. In this way you get luck for each month of the coming year. It is a well known fact. And you never did this?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Le pauvre. What a deprived childhood. In Eger there were plane trees as high as the tower of the Observatory, well almost as high, and every October...’

  She was gone. Another leaf, another month.

  Steven watched her demonic energy, darting among the Sunday afternoon strollers. She must have faith in the theory, he decided. Or maybe she needed some action to disguise the strangeness of meeting him again. Or maybe — because he found himself grinning — maybe she guessed it would give him pleasure to watch her move.

  By the time the she-rain returned, Steven’s hands were full of luck. A gust of wind tore away one of the special leaves. Ilona gave chase with despairing cries while all around thousands of little pieces of luck fluttered past. She held up the precious leaf, or its cousin, the rain streaking black from her eye-shadow.

  ‘Come on, it’s not far. We’ll run.’

  ‘Where?’ she wanted to know.

  Of course she pleaded to drive it, of course she did.

  It was a Ferrari. She trailed fingers across the body that had been designed by Pininfarina with those voluptuous curves and sculpted edges of his. Her eyes were open very wide. She felt her pulse and breathing quicken. Be honest, she told herself, you haven’t felt like this since the first time with Endre, and then didn’t he look like Robert Redford?

  ‘It’s truly yours?’

  Steven nodded.

  ‘You like power.’ She tried to put disapproval into her voice. But who didn’t like power? Endre’s body and eyes had had that power over her and so did this Ferrari.

  She asked and he told her: it was the 330 GTC model.

  ‘How fast will it go?’ Oh, she hadn’t meant to ask that. The thing was seducing her.

  He was off-hand. ‘I don’t really know. Twice the legal limit?’ The she-rain had blown away. The afternoon sun on the gunmetal blue was a siren song.

  ‘Show me how it works. No, let me sit behind the wheel.’

  Thus and thus and thus were his instructions. How could she hear the words? Her ears waited for the music of the engine. She turned the ignition key and asked him: ‘What’s the engine size?’ He muttered something and she said: ‘What?’

  ‘Three point nine litres.’

  She was still parked at the kerb but her foot teased the accelerator. She felt the power capturing every bone and sinew in her body.

  ‘Go ahead,’ Steven said. ‘I’ll give you directions.’

  She gunned the engine again and even rested her fingers on the handbrake and glanced in the rear-view mirror. But she couldn’t bring herself to drive. She reached forward and switched the engine off.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Steven asked.

  How could she explain? Oh, she ached to drive the Ferrari. She could almost hear Judit’s voice prodding: Drive, don’t be a fish-head, you should always do what you want to, that’s the meaning of the revolution. But the Ferrari was a symbol and symbols were important. Would Steven understand that? Perhaps Steven was a Catholic. She could tell him it was like a Catholic and some carnal sin: even when you ached to...

  ‘Can’t you drive?’ Steven went on when she didn’t answer. ‘Don’t you have a car?’

  ‘Don’t patronize me.’ Her eyes, where earlier he’d noticed depths, were as dark as boiling pitch. ‘Of course I own a car. It’s a Lada 1500, not like this flying machine gun. And I drive superbly. I am a champion, no less. Last month the Autoklub held its rally in Budapest. Just by the city park, Gyorgy Dozsa Avenue. Have you forgotten Budapest?’

  ‘Have I forgotten?’ He sat a moment, listening to the traffic or some remembered sound. ‘I know that place as Stalin Square. No one could ever forget his statue.’

  ‘It’s gone for good,’ she said. ‘Steven, it was never put back.’

  He said: ‘How can anyone be gone for good? The dead live. Christ and Aristotle and Marx and Freud and Beethoven and Hitler and Stalin. The stone sinks but the ripples spread.’

  ‘You are an impossible man,’ she said and banged at the wheel. ‘I’m not discussing history. I’m telling you about my driving. Anyway, there are still statues in the square. One is possibly of some revolutionary, I’ve never asked, but he runs and shouts in the approved revolutionary manner. On the other side is Lenin, very stiff and dull. Under Lenin’s gaze the Autoklub had set up the course. It was like doing a slalom between flags on the cobbles, manoeuvrability in forward and reverse gears, tight cornering, everything against the clock. You see I have the reactions of a fox, fast, nervous, instinctive. That’s why I am a marvellous actress — or so people tell me and who am I to disagree? Quick and. intuitive. People never expect t
hat the actress can also be a marvellous driver. I was placed seventh in the time-trials. And against all those men who were out to prove their virility. Seventh out of a hundred. I was even presented with a gold cup. Well, goldish.’

  ‘And did Lenin approve?’

  ‘A good socialist should know how to drive well. But to own a sinful car like this is the mark of a wicked capitalist.’ She tried to put disapproval in her voice and then she grinned, knowing how she coveted the car. She sighed and got out.

  They passed each other at the front of the car. Like a husband and wife sharing the driving on a long journey, thought Ilona. And passed in silence, like a married couple who have quarrelled.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Home,’ Steven said. ‘We can talk and not have eavesdroppers.’

  ‘Talk and talk and talk,’ she said. ‘I don’t know where to begin. I cannot think of a single thing to say. I know nothing about you any more. Are you rich? Maybe you’re the chauffeur and borrowed the boss’s car. What do you do? Why haven’t you told me about yourself?’

  He said: ‘I’m a photographer.’

  ‘A photographer? Oh mon Dieu.’ She grabbed for the little driving mirror and surveyed her face. Like a black tear, the rain had streaked the liner at the corner of an eye, and the wind had ruffled the short-clipped hair. ‘I forbid you to take my picture.’ She dabbed at her face with a handkerchief. ‘I’m a mess, a disaster, I look as if I work in a coal mine. How dare you conceal you were a photographer! You let me think you were some rich businessman with a haughty wife and three mistresses and payments from shady deals in plain brown envelopes. I hate you for that, Steven, hate you. How could you lie to me? Stop at once. Let me get out.’

  ‘I have stopped.’

  He gazed at Ilona in some awe. She was fascinating, especially to herself. This self-absorbed nature of the theatre was, he supposed, to do with the spotlights: that the world about their persons is bright, but everything out there is in shadow. For a moment she seemed so deadly serious that a great shout of laughter welled up in him. She joined in and patted him on the cheek and said, ‘Bless you,’ though she didn’t know why he laughed. But people laugh when they are happy, she told herself, therefore he’s pleased to see me.