The Complete Short Stories: Volume 1. Adam Thirlwell

Gioconda tapped his arm but he gestured her away. Most of the baffle appeared to be taken up by dubious financial dealings, but nothing that would really hurt LeGrande if revealed.

      Then he heard –

      ‘… Bermuda Hilton. Private Island, with anchorage, have the beach cleaned up, last time the water was full of fish … I don’t care, poison them, hang some nets out … Imogene will fly in from Idlewild as Mrs Edna Burgess, warn Customs to stay away …’

      ‘… call Cartiers, something for the Contessa, 17 carats say, ceiling of ten thousand. No, make it eight thousand …’

      ‘… hat-check girl at the Tropicabana. Usual dossier …’

      Mangon scribbled furiously, but LeGrande was speaking at rapid dictation speed and he could get down only a few fragments. Madame Gioconda barely deciphered his handwriting, and became more and more frustrated as her appetite was whetted. Finally she flung away the notes in a fury of exasperation.

      ‘This is absurd, you’re missing everything!’ she cried. She pounded on one of the baffles, then broke down and began to sob angrily. ‘Oh God, God, God, how ridiculous! Help me, I’m going insane …’

      Mangon hurried across to her, put his arms round her shoulders to support her. She pushed him away irritably, railing at herself to discharge her impatience. ‘It’s useless, Mangon, it’s stupid of me, I was a fool –’

      ‘STOP!’

      The cry split the air like the blade of a guillotine.

      They both straightened, stared at each other blankly. Mangon put his fingers slowly to his lips, then reached out tremulously and put his hands in Madame Gioconda’s. Somewhere within him a tremendous tension had begun to dissolve.

      ‘Stop,’ he said again in a rough but quiet voice. ‘Don’t cry. I’ll help you.’

      Madame Gioconda gaped at him with amazement. Then she let out a tremendous whoop of triumph.

      ‘Mangon, you can talk! You’ve got your voice back! It’s absolutely astounding! Say something, quickly, for heaven’s sake!’

      Mangon felt his mouth again, ran his fingers rapidly over his throat. He began to tremble with excitement, his face brightened, he jumped up and down like a child.

      ‘I can talk,’ he repeated wonderingly. His voice was gruff, then seesawed into a treble. ‘I can talk,’ he said louder, controlling its pitch. ‘I can talk, I can talk, I can talk!’ He flung his head back, let out an ear-shattering shout. ‘I CAN TALK! HEAR ME!’ He ripped the wrist-pad off his sleeve, hurled it away over the baffles.

      Madame Gioconda backed away, laughing agreeably. ‘We can hear you, Mangon. Dear me, how sweet.’ She watched Mangon thoughtfully as he cavorted happily in the narrow interval between the aisles. ‘Now don’t tire yourself out or you’ll lose it again.’

      Mangon danced over to her, seized her shoulders and squeezed them tightly. He suddenly realized that he knew no diminutive or Christian name for her.

      ‘Madame Gioconda,’ he said earnestly, stumbling over the syllables, the words that were so simple yet so enormously complex to pronounce. ‘You gave me back my voice. Anything you want –’ He broke off, stuttering happily, laughing through his tears. Suddenly he buried his head in her shoulder, exhausted by his discovery, and cried gratefully, ‘It’s a wonderful voice.’

      Madame Gioconda steadied him maternally. ‘Yes, Mangon,’ she said, her eyes on the discarded notes lying in the dust. ‘You’ve got a wonderful voice, all right.’ Sotto voce, she added: ‘But your hearing is even more wonderful.’

      Paul Merrill switched off the SP player, sat down on the arm of the sofa and watched Mangon quizzically.

      ‘Strange. You know, my guess is that it was psychosomatic.’

      Mangon grinned. ‘Psychosemantic,’ he repeated, garbling the word half-deliberately. ‘Clever. You can do amazing things with words. They help to crystallize the truth.’

      Merrill groaned playfully. ‘God, you sit there, you drink your coke, you philosophize. Don’t you realize you’re supposed to stand quietly in a corner, positively dumb with gratitude? Now you’re even ramming your puns down my throat. Never mind, tell me again how it happened.’

      ‘Once a pun a time –’ Mangon ducked the magazine Merrill flung at him, let out a loud ‘Olé!’

      For the last two weeks he had been en fête.

      Every day he and Madame Gioconda followed the same routine; after breakfast at the studio they drove out to the stockade, spent two or three hours compiling their confidential file on LeGrande, lunched at the cabin and then drove back to the city, Mangon going off on his rounds while Madame Gioconda slept until he returned shortly before midnight. For Mangon their existence was idyllic; not only was he rediscovering himself in terms of the complex spectra and patterns of speech – a completely new category of existence – but at the same time his relationship with Madame Gioconda revealed areas of sympathy, affection and understanding that he had never previously seen. If he sometimes felt that he was too preoccupied with his side of their relationship and the extraordinary benefits it had brought him, at least Madame Gioconda had been equally well served. Her headaches and mysterious phantoms had gone, she had cleaned up the studio and begun to salvage a little dignity and self-confidence, which made her single-minded sense of ambition seem less obsessive. Psychologically, she needed Mangon less now than he needed her, and he was sensible to restrain his high spirits and give her plenty of attention. During the first week Mangon’s incessant chatter had been rather wearing, and once, on their way to the stockade, she had switched on the sonovac in the driving-cab and left Mangon mouthing silently at the air like a stranded fish. He had taken the hint.

      ‘What about the sound-sweeping?’ Merrill asked. ‘Will you give it up?’

      Mangon shrugged. ‘It’s my talent, but living at the stockade, let in at back doors, cleaning up the verbal garbage – it’s a degraded job. I want to help Madame Gioconda. She will need a secretary when she starts to go on tour.’

      Merrill shook his head warily. ‘You’re awfully sure there’s going to be a sonic revival, Mangon. Every sign is against it.’

      ‘They have not heard Madame Gioconda sing. Believe me, I know the power and wonder of the human voice. Ultrasonic music is great for atmosphere, but it has no content. It can’t express ideas, only emotions.’

      ‘What happened to that closed circuit programme you and Ray were going to put on for her?’

      ‘It – fell through,’ Mangon lied. The circuits Madame Gioconda would perform on would be open to the world. He had told them nothing of the visits to the stockade, of his power to read the baffles, of the accumulating file on LeGrande. Soon Madame Gioconda would strike.

      

      Above them in the hallway a door slammed, someone stormed through into the apartment in a tempest, kicking a chair against a wall. It was Alto. He raced down the staircase into the lounge, jaw tense, fingers flexing angrily.

      ‘Paul, don’t interrupt me until I’ve finished,’ he snapped, racing past without looking at them. ‘You’ll be out of a job but I warn you, if you don’t back me up one hundred per cent I’ll shoot you. That goes for you too, Mangon, I need you in on this.’ He whirled over to the window, bolted out the traffic noises below, then swung back and watched them steadily, feet planted firmly in the carpet. For the first time in the three years Mangon had known him he looked aggressive and confident.

      ‘Headline,’ he announced. ‘The Gioconda is to sing again! Incredible and terrifying though the prospect may seem, exactly two weeks from now the live, uncensored voice of the Gioconda will go out coast to coast on all three V.C. radio channels. Surprised, Mangon? It’s no secret, they’re printing the bills right now. Eight-thirty to nine-thirty,