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  somebody else. Not here, and not me. I couldn’t do anything about it.’

  Susie said, ‘Would you take her back, if she came?’

  Daniel had an armful of fresh eggs. But he stopped where he was, and looked at Susie seriously, and then set the eggs down one by one on the counter so that he could take her into his arms and hold her very, very close. She had that warm-bready smell of a young child who has just been sleeping, a hostage freshly released by the sandman.

  ‘Susie,’ he said, in a hoarse, affectionate whisper, ‘I have all I need in you.’

  ‘You won’t take her back then?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘It wouldn’t be fair.’

  She looked closely at him, and there were tears in her eyes. ‘Who wouldn’t it be fair to?’ she asked.

  ‘It wouldn’t be fair to your mommy, nor to me, nor to you. We’d argue all the time, you know that. We’d shout. We’d wind up hating each other when we should always love each other.’

  Susie pressed her forehead against his, and then said, in the smallest voice, ‘I miss her.’

  ‘I know, said Daniel. ‘So do I.’

  A cat-curious voice interrupted, ‘I hope I’m not breaking up anything meaningful here.’ Daniel looked up. It was Cara, sleepy-eyed but awake, with her red hair brushed into chrysanthemum curls. She was wearing one of Daniel’s blue denim workshirts, unbuttoned, so that she was revealing her deep alabaster-white cleavage, her flat white stomach, and the rusty tangle of red pubic hair between her long white thighs. She was unashamed, provocative, and highway-stylish - possessed of that same vagrant elegance that had attracted him to Candii, his first-ever wife and Susie’s mother. Susie recognized the breed, and kissed her father on the nose with childish promptness and left.

  ‘Did I drive her away?’ asked Cara, not altogether without satisfaction.

  Daniel stood up, and rubbed the back of his neck. ‘She’s

  used to it. She’s only trying to make me feel guilty. She misses her mommy.’

  ‘Understandable,’ said Cara. She came up close and kissed his cheek, then his mouth. ‘Do you want me to fix us some coffee?’

  ‘Don’t worry. I have to fix enough for the whole of Apache Junction in any case. Would you pass me that skillet?’

  Cara stood beside him as he melted lard in the skillet for the hash browns. She touched his shoulder sensitively, as if she couldn’t quite believe that he was real. The sun crept in between the slats of the Venetian blind and suddenly illuminated the white china bowl of Spanish onions, so that they took on the charmed radiance of a detail by Vermeer. And as he stood over the hot kitchen range in his jeans and his white short-sleeved shirt, slightly-built, dark-haired, a little used-looking but still attractive, Daniel appeared to Cara to become irradiated with some of the same domestic magic. Portrait of the chef as a tired but friendly angel.

  ‘You were strange last night,’ she told him. ‘Strange and wonderful. Too gentle for a short-order cook.’

  ‘Restaurant proprietor, he corrected her. He scraped frozen onion slices into the skillet and they began to sizzle.

  ‘Restaurant proprietor, whatever, she smiled.

  ‘You think I’m strange?’ he asked.

  She nodded happily. He frowned at her for a moment and then shrugged. As a matter of fact, he had often thought himself that he must have been born into some kind of backward-facing looking-glass land. His life and his career always seemed to turn out the polar opposite of what he really wanted, and of what he was really capable of achieving. The only points he ever managed to score in the 36 years he had been alive were into his own goal. Even his face, when he saw it in photographs, looked as if it were the wrong way around; as if the man he glimpsed in mirrors and store windows was the way he actually should have been, and the face with which he

  walked around all day was his awkward other-self, his klutzy doppelganger.

  He should have been a famous TV entertainer, a kind of alternative Johnny Carson, a poor man’s Dan Rather. Instead, he ran Daniel’s Downhome Diner, in Apache Junction, Arizona, beside the heat-wavering horizon of the Superstition Mountains, near the famous Lost Dutchman Mine. Daniel’s Downhome Diner was popular enough, if popularity meant anything at all in a town of 2,391 and falling. There was an intermittent passing-through trade, truckers and tourists and windpump salesmen, as well as hitch-hikers and assorted mysteriosos. Sometimes the customers were friendly; sometimes offensive. Sometimes they cried into their coffee, or threw chairs through the window. There were nine gingham-covered tables, red gingham, with plastic tomatoes full of ketchup, and a 1967 jukebox with Happy Together by the Turtles and Penny Lane by the Beatles, not because Daniel held any special memories of 1967, but simply because the lock was broken and nobody could get into the juke-i box to change the records. On the wall there was a smeary blackboard menu, Franks & Beans, Minute Steaks & Beans, Tamales, Empanadas, Cheeseburgers. All good downhome stuff, although Daniel was actually capable of ! tossing together oysters Bienville, or pompano en papillate, or ( even pigeonneaux royaux au sauce paradis, with equal equanimity. His father had been a chef at Alciatore’s in San ‘< Francisco in the 1950s, and had taught him to cook with j all the care and patience and calculated disgust of a real professional. Daniel rarely prepared such exotica these days, mainly because he was more than seriously tired of cooking by the end of the day, and because nobody else in Apache Junction would have wanted to eat anything like that anyway. Apache Junctioneers ate a lot of steak and a lot of beans and that was just about it. He could just imagine the reaction he would get from Indian Bill Hargraves if he served him up tender fragments of crab and mushrooms and fish in a paper poke. ‘What the hell’s this, a Western Airlines sickbag?’

  He had never meant to run a restaurant, especially not here in Final County, Arizona. He had tried singing, and selling, and sucking out sewers, and collecting tolls on the Indian National Turnpike in Oklahoma. He had even worked as a stand-up comedian in a quasi-Victorian topless nightspot in Nevada called the Gaslight. ‘And Moses is standing on top of the mountain, right, and he says to Jehovah, listen, let me get this straight, you want us to cut the end of our dicks off?’ That was where he had met and married Candii, Susie’s mother, blonde curls and snub nose and Little Annie Fanny eyes, giggly and small and sexy, with breasts so big that when she jiggled down the street men used to stop and stare with their mouths wide open, a tabletop dancer supreme, a burlesque artiste out of her time, the rage and the love of his life, gone now, of course, like a sad hoarse-throated song by Dr Hook (‘To think I was the kind of guy who could have kept her … would be taking too much credit on myself). Candii had sworn filthy curses at him in the obstetric clinic in Reno, while a red neon light across the street had flashed the word DIVORCE on and off all night, and the doctor had warned vaguely that Susie would probably die. Susie hadn’t died, thank God, but Candii had left them after eight months, taking her tight silk dresses and her seamed stockings and her giant-sized pink vibrator, which he had never seen her use. He missed her badly, even now, six years later, because she was an unassailable sexual fantasy and because she always used to laugh at his jokes and because he loved her. What was more, her name was actually Candii, on her birth certificate.

  He had arrived in Apache Junction by accident. He had been heading towards Santa F6, New Mexico, to show off Susie to Candii’s mother (only 42 herself, by God, and just as busty as her daughter) and to panhandle a few hundred dollars from Candii’s father to pay off some of his arrears in rent. A few miles outside of Phoenix, his old green Mercury had finally collapsed on its worn-out suspension and died by the glaring roadside. When he had looked around, the signs had said Apache Junction.

  They had also said Thriving Diner for Sale. The Navajo mechanic from the nearby Exxon garage had stared Indian-wrinkly-mouthed at the Mercury’s rusty green carcass, his waist girdled with shiny wrenches, and then at last pronounced, ‘No point in fixing that, my friend. Transmission’s shot.’ The m
oon-faced man who was selling the diner had peered out suspiciously from his darkened porch and said, ‘You’re not wasting my time, are you? I get more time-wasters, I can tell you.’

  There wasn’t much in Apache Junction. A couple of gas stations, a few peeling houses, an Indian jewellery store. But it was as good or as bad as living anyplace else. The weather was warm and dry and helpful to Daniel’s sinus condition. The crime rate was low. The only habitual offender was a halfbreed Navajo called Ronald Reagan Kinishba, and he and Daniel were good friends. They played cards together occasionally, and got themselves drunk on Lowenbrau, and sometimes Ronald took Daniel out on the pillion seat of his Honda 749cc Nighthawk, blaring through the night at 110 mph, oblivious to anything but speed and grit and hot wind, and lights that flashed past them like space missiles out of Star Trek II. Afterwards, they would sit astride the bike at some unmapped desert intersection, trembling and saying, ‘Shit, wow, phew,’ over and over.

  It was a silent life, sometimes; a life in which a man could turn in on himself. At night, in high summer, with the sky as clear as a black lawn sprinkled with silver daisies, with Susie sleeping in her rumpled cot, and the odd aromatic smell of the desert on the breeze, Daniel would sit out on the balcony at the back of the diner listening to the small voice of KSTM inside the kitchen, and wonder if he was real or not. He would cheer himself up by remembering one of Woody Allen’s characters, who hated reality but realized it was the only place to get a good steak. He often felt like a Woody Allen character himself these days: anxious, and just about able to cope. And the longer he lived in Apache Junction, the greater his uncertainty about coping became.

  Cara said, ‘You don’t feel like a vacation, maybe?’

  He looked up from the onions. ‘A vacation? What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, getting away from it all.’

  ‘You don’t think this is getting away from it all? Apache Junction?’

  She kissed him, and then reached forward a little nearer and kissed him again. ‘This is work,’ she said. ‘I’m talking about swimming, or surfing, or climbing up mountains and making love on the snowline.’

  ‘Oh, yes? And who’s going to take care of Susie?’

  ‘Don’t you have a friendly old couple who could take her in for a week or two?’

  Daniel stirred onions, and then reached for the seasoning. ‘I’d miss her,’ he said.

  There was a long pause. Then Cara said, ‘Would you mind if I stuck around for a little while? Maybe a day or two?’

  Daniel glanced at her, and smiled. ‘You’re welcome, if that’s what you want.’

  Cara took his wrist, and nudged back the shirt she was wearing, and held his hand firmly over her bare left breast. She stared at him challengingly, and he felt her nipple crinkle and rise against the palm of his hand. ‘Destiny/ she said.

  ‘What is?’ he asked her.

  ‘You and me, meeting. Destiny. Not great destiny. Not thunder and lightning and whole continents catching fire. But good sweet destiny; something we can both remember for ever, when the mood comes over us.’

  He kept staring into those pale blue eyes of hers, and gently rotating the palm of his hand around her breast. ‘Cara,’ he said. ‘Cara from South Dakota. I don’t even know your surname.’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  Just then, there was a rattling knock at the kitchen window; and through the frosted glass, Daniel could see the blurry outline of a man’s face. ‘Daniel! You there? Daniel!’

  ‘Willy?’ called Daniel. ‘Hold on a second, I’ll let you in.’ He turned to Cara, and said, ‘It’s a friend of mine. Do you want to go get dressed?’

  Cara looked down at herself. ‘Oh, sure,she said. She blew him a kiss, and then, with a sassy twirl, turned around and pranced back upstairs.

  ‘Holy shit,’ came Susie’s voice from the diner next door, although Daniel had paddled her twice in the past week for talking like a trucker. But sometimes women knew when they could get away with it, and Susie was no exception.

  Three

  Daniel lowered the gas under the onions and went to open the back door. Willy Monahan came tumbling in with his usual awkwardness, brushing dust off his Air Force uniform. ‘Whose damn chickens are those? Are they your damn chickens? Damn things almost pecked the laces straight out of my damn shoes!’

  They’re Bill’s,’ said Daniel, mildly. Tima Indian who lives out back there, he’s peaceful enough and gives me plenty of eggs, too. Do you want some coffee? You’re early.’

  ‘I’m not early, I’m damn late,’ Willy retorted. He hung up his major’s cap next to a huge Hungarian salami, ‘I’ve been working all night in the armoury.’ He sniffed, and fhen he said, What’s that smell?’

  ‘Onions.’

  ‘No, the other smell. The subtle, sensual, underlying smell. Do I detect woman with a capital W?’

  Susie came into the kitchen, carrying a stack of clean red gingham napkins. ‘Hi, Uncle Willy.’

  ‘Hi yourself. Don’t tell me the old man has company again.’

  Susie nodded. ‘Redhead. From South Dakota.’

  Daniel took down another skillet, and scraped some more lard into it. ‘I’m outnumbered, you know that? My daughter, my best friend, who’s it going to be next? Just because a pretty young lady from Woonsocket decides to spend a little time here, helping me out - ‘

  ‘Woonsocket? You’re serious?’ asked Willy.

  ‘Of course I’m serious. Woonsocket is in Sanborn County, a couple of hundred miles south of Huron.’

  ‘Oh, that Woonsocket,’ teased Willy. ‘Well, my friend, if if s that Woonsocket, you don’t have much to worry about. They’re known for their obliging redheads. In fact eight Woonsocket women out of ten are redheads. They’re also known for the Woonsocket Jew’s Harp Orchestra, and Woonsocket Pie, which is a whole gopher in a flaky pastry crust.’

  Susie giggled, but Daniel closed his eyes and raised his head as if he were appealing to the Lord to save him from smartass Air Force majors. To think, Willy, that we depend on you to protect this great nation of ours in time of war.’

  Willy noisily pulled across one of the red-and-gold Mexican kitchen chairs, and sat down on it, propping one angular leg across the other. ‘You don’t know how damn hicky you are,’ he said. “The reason I spent all night in the armoury was because single-handedly and unaided I have discovered a flaw in our air-to-air radar systems. Now, what do you think about that?’

  ‘What should I think?’ asked Daniel.

  ‘What should you think? You should only think that you have sitting in your humble little kitchen the greatest genius in ordnance and navigation systems in the entire United States Air Force. And that’s just for beginners.’

  ‘Have some coffee, Daniel enjoined him.

  Willy was unusually disconnected and disarrayed-look-ing for an Air Force major, particularly an Air Force major who flew regular tactical training missions in a jet airplane

  which could fly at 920 mph and had cost the American taxpayer something over $18 million. He was thin, Willy, with a large hatchet nose, and bright dark eyes. He had been married once, years ago, but his wife Nora had left him during Viet Nam, and he had sworn to himself that he would never try marriage again. Instead, he had devoted his on-duty hours to familiarizing himself almost fanatically with the Air Force’s new and sophisticated weapons systems, becoming an amateur expert in radar and guided missiles; and his off-duty hours to Chivas Regal, poker, and scandalous womanizing. He was the only officer in the Air Force who had completely overhauled a Boeing 8-1 defensive radar system single-handed, and the only officer in the Air Force who had actually succeeded in tugging the white nylon pants off Corporal Sherry P. Kearns, the Junoesque but notoriously inflexible secretary of General Tailpipe’ Truscott, at Nellis Air Force Base.

  Willy was Nebraskan by birth; rangy, funny, but also very good at what he did, an Air Force man through and through. If his wife hadn’t left him, and if he had behaved himself, he could h
ave been a major-general by now, on $38,000 a year. But he had remained a major for six years, while younger and correcter men were promoted over his head, and his latest posting to Williams AFB to train inexperienced young pilots on F-15 Eagles had been an unmistakable message from Tactical Air Command that he could expect to rise no further. He called Williams ‘the Graveyard of Dreams’.

  He hadn’t quit the Air Force. There was nothing else he could do, not happily, at least. But now and then, when he was drunk, his chagrin rose to the surface like the boiling bubbles from a sunken submarine, and he foully cursed all wives, and all superior officers, and most of all he foully cursed himself.

  He sipped his coffee noisily, and helped himself to a handful of chocolate-chip cookies. ‘I can’t wait to lay all this stuff on Colonel Kawalek’s desk. I can picture his face already. “Well, Willy, what’s all this, Willy? What do you

  mean our radar’s up shit-creek? Apart from being distasteful, Willy, it’s politically impossible.” ‘ Willy did a particularly cruel impersonation of the blustery Kawalek.

  Daniel peeled strips of bacon out of a greasy plastic pack, and laid them in the skillet. ‘Is it serious, this flaw you’ve found?’

  ‘Is it serious? Was Hiroshima serious? Of course it’s

  serious.’

  Willy munched cookies and swallowed coffee as if he were trying to win himself a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the man who gave himself indigestion the fastest.

  ‘Well, are you going to tell me?’ asked Daniel.

  ‘It’s very technical,’ said Willy. ‘I’m not sure I could explain it to a short-order cook.’

  ‘Restaurant proprietor, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Whatever. It isn’t easy to understand, not unless you have a moderate grasp of the principles of X-band pulse-doppler radar.’

  ‘Are you kidding?’ said Daniel, flipping the bacon over. ‘My mother used to tell me bedtime stories about X-band pulse-doppler radar. Didn’t you ever hear the one about X-band pulse-doppler radar and the seven dwarfs?’