The week after the exhibition, on the way to work—after bragging about Maxine Mathers’s late-night visit to his hotel room: “Now, there is a woman whose reputation exceeded her . . .”—Duncan announced he would not be renewing his contract when it came up in a month’s time.
“Can’t do it anymore, Lulu,” he said. “Got to get ready for my final turn on the floor. I wanted to wait until you’d had your little high school reunion to tell you, but the tumor’s hanging on tighter than Kimmy to the prenup, and there’s a few more of the buggers now, apparently.”
We pulled into the station and made our way inside, Barney snaking in and out of our legs as we went. It was cold. Duncan was rubbing his hands together and blowing on them, pacing back and forth in our little room beside the studio, and all I could think was how I should get him a scarf. I should get him a scarf so his neck wouldn’t get cold, surely that couldn’t be good for him.
“I’m getting you a scarf,” I said.
“What?”
“I’m getting you a scarf, it’s too cold in here for you.”
“Lot colder where I’m going, Lulu.”
“Duncan, don’t say that.”
“It’s true, Lulu,” he said, flicking the shutters of our office closed. “There,” he said, “now when everyone arrives they’ll all think we’re in here shagging ourselves senseless, could do wonders for your reputation.”
“Or yours.” I smiled.
“Mine doesn’t need any help, Lulu—now where was I? Oh, yes, it’s time for my action plan to kick in.” He began to outline it, telling me how he had been meeting with his lawyer for weeks, working on a plan to distribute his not inconsiderable fortune equitably between his ex-wives and children. “The will’s sewn up tighter than a gnat’s arse over a rain barrel,” he concluded cheerfully. “I don’t want any fighting after I’m gone. They’ve all been more than adequately compensated for the ignominy of being married to me—particularly Karen. God, I was a bastard to her. . . .”
“I don’t think you were that bad,” I said.
“I called her Katie at our wedding ceremony, Lulu, and don’t start being nice to me now just because I’m dying,” he said. “It’s very patronizing.” He took a sip of his coffee, holding it in both hands. “Now we need to talk about what we’re going to tell everyone—so far, only you, the specialists, and I know that I’m to shuffle off this mortal coil sooner rather than later, and that’s exactly how I mean to keep it. No one must know, Lulu—not Kiki, not Kerry-Anne, not Katie—”
“Karen,” I said automatically.
“What? Right, not Karen, not Kimmy, not the children, and certainly not the Mephistophelean bastards I work for.”
I sat on his desk swinging my legs, wondering how he thought we were going to pull this off.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” he said, pacing the room and rubbing his hands.
Gloves, I thought. Gloves.
“In a couple of weeks’ time, we’ll make an announcement that I’m retiring, that after forty years I’m giving the tonsils a rest and looking forward to spending more time with my family—they all say that, whether they’re retiring or have been given the flick. We do no interviews, no specials, do not, for Christ’s sake, let them do one of those This Is Your Life TV specials—I’ll do my last shift, then we leave. Got it?”
I nodded.
“Then, I retire quietly to Willow Island to while away the hours. I’ve sorted it all out with Dr. Stephenson. I’ll visit the specialists when I have to, and he’ll provide me with whatever painkillers I may need.
“You take some leave without pay from the station, but stay on the same wage, on my own payroll as my personal assistant—by the way, I’m going to need you to get me some pot.”
“Get you some pot?”
“Yes,” he said impatiently. “Pot, Lulu, you know, weed, grass, dope, herb, skunk—apparently it’s marvelous for pain management—oh, stop looking at me like I’ve asked you to smuggle cocaine in your undies! Really, Lulu, it’s not that hard, you just wander around the corridor for a bit and ask if anyone’s got some, this is a radio station, you know. But I don’t want any rubbish—no leaf, just some nice, sticky heads, got that?”
“Yes,” I said, “go outside in the hallway at my place of work and ask people who pass by if they have any skunk for me.”
“Good girl.” He beamed. “Now about the children. They are not to visit when things start to get ugly. I do not want those children to see me unless I’m up and about, with a fishing rod in my hand, do you understand?”
I understood.
Duncan McAllister had relied on me to handle just about every aspect of his life for the last few years—now he wanted me to do the same for his death.
“Is Duncan holding out for more money, Lulu, is that what this is all really about? Well, tell him we’ll give it to him.”
“Tallulah, I don’t think you or Duncan realize how vital it is for us to retain his services. . . . We’ve just repainted his name in the car park, for Christ’s sake.”
“Fuck him, Lulu, all right, fuck him, if he wants to play this game, then fine, tell him we’ve got a line of people champing at the bit to take over.”
On and on the questions went, asked by those farther and farther up the ladder until I was summoned by the man who sat on the very top rung, every now and again poking out a polished shoe to knock someone clawing their way up off it.
“Is there nothing you can do?” Jack Abraham, owner of OzRadio, was asking me, having flown from London, it was rumored, specifically to change Duncan’s mind—which he hadn’t, because Duncan was hiding from him on Willow, saying, “You deal with it, Lulu.”
I shook my head.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Abraham.”
“Call me Jack.”
“I’m sorry, Jack, but no, I don’t think I can do anything at all.”
“Is there nothing anyone can do, Lulu?” His canny eyes met mine.
“No, I don’t believe so.”
“Well,” he said, getting up, “better let the man go then.”
On Duncan’s last morning, the media camped outside the security gates waiting for his car to creep through the predawn fog, and although the papers and airwaves had been full of his departure for days, we were both still surprised to see so many of them there, like guests we never expected to turn up at a party.
“Eat them, Barney,” Duncan said, before pulling up beside the pack, rolling down his window, his arm resting on the door, squinting at the lights.
“Slow news day, is it?” he said, “Or has someone died? Bernie Hanson, you old fraud, I thought your dick was the only thing that got up this early in the morning. . . .”
He pulled them all out, all the old tricks, the insults, the one-liners, and as the security gate lifted like a game-show hostess’s arm, the pack stepped back to let Duncan McAllister through for the last time. Then they put down their cameras and recorders, and clapped.
“Geez,” said Duncan, taking in their standing ovation, “if I didn’t hate half the bastards I’d be quite moved by that.”
Duncan’s last shift broke all the ratings records, but even when it was over, it wasn’t over.
While he quietly moved to Willow Island, I had to stay behind at the station to “tidy things up,” answer the listeners’ letters that still arrived weekly, long after he and Barney had left the building, which had been a strange procession of man, dog, and well-wishers who opened their doors to shake hands and paws along the way.
I’d also stayed to take the phone calls, the lies falling from my lips like casually dropped stitches: “No, Duncan’s fine, he’s just ready to take a well-deserved break after forty years in the business.” “No, I’m sorry, he’s not doing any interviews at all at the moment, too busy fishing.” “Thank you so much for making Mr. McAllister that beautiful commemorative quilt; he thanks the ladies of the McLean Valley with all his heart.”
Duncan would call every day or two from the island to bark instructions at me, ordering books and newspapers, any special food he wanted brought over, names of people he wanted called, and outlining elaborate plans to keep the truth hidden for as long as possible.
This involved furtive trips to and from the ferry, into town and the hospital, where he had somehow contrived a separate entry from the general public for us. We would drive into the basement car park and catch a service elevator to a third-floor storage room, which we would stroll out of—Duncan motioning “One, two, three, go!” at me with his hands—and down to a passenger lift to take us up to Dr. Stephenson’s office.
I don’t know how many people we fooled, or for how long. We certainly did not fool Kimmy.
She and Duncan were no longer together, a quiet divorce and an even quieter settlement having ended their union legally, but they kept in touch and she had turned up at Willow Island one day, roaring up the driveway in the red BMW the divorce had bought her.
Duncan told me afterward how he’d opened the door and she’d said, “What’s all this bullshit about you retiring here, Duncan?” And he, unable to deflect her steady gaze, had answered with the truth.
“Hard luck, Mac,” she’d said.
He also told me he’d apologized to her for “stuffing things up” between them, and she’d said it was all right, that they’d had some fun together, and asked if he was still up for some more.
“I told her I wasn’t dead yet.” He beamed, completely delighted with himself.