Upstate

by James Wood

  “It must have been difficult, growing up during the war—and afterward, too,” Josh said. Helen saw that to improve the slight lisp, he sometimes made an awkward shift with his lower jaw, like someone wiggling a key in a reliably stiff lock.

  Was it difficult? He was so young then, he remembered very little.

  “I had a happy childhood. My parents protected me from a lot, I think. Kids have a harder time now. I wouldn’t want to be a twenty-year-old in today’s climate. We had real prospects after the war, though the economy was a shambles and rationing seemed to go on forever. At least we felt we had prospects. Actually, it was the late fifties by the time I started working, and everything was opening out by then. There was a National Health Service and a Welfare State, for one thing. That was a big difference from my childhood … People could suddenly get their teeth fixed. When I was a kid, it wasn’t strange to see boys wearing their big sisters’ coats, the day after their sisters had gone out wearing them. Everything was still expanding. And we still made things! Do you know who was the world’s biggest exporter of cars in 1950? Great Britain. Now all the big British car companies are owned by foreigners.”

  “But it’s a different global economy now,” said Josh. “Yes? Innovation rather than replication. Ford’s law—churning out millions of identical Model Ts—has given way to Moore’s law.” Alan wanted to reply, but didn’t know what Josh was talking about when he said “Moore’s law.” Perhaps the lad was trying to be kind in his way?

  “We owned a Jensen Interceptor in the 1970s,” said Helen, with a show of irrelevance. “Hello, I can tell from your face that you don’t know what I’m talking about,” turning to Josh. “It was the most beautiful British sports car.”

  “Broke down a lot,” added Alan. “Sir Matt Busby had one, and Lord Carrington.”

  “And John Bonham,” said Helen.

  “And then Helen ruined it all by naming her first band Jensen and the Interceptors. I couldn’t take the beautiful sports car very seriously after that,” said Vanessa, smiling a little wildly.

  “It’s not as if I took the band very seriously either. Remember cute Julian Vereker? The refusenik drummer?”

  “I remember.”

  Helen was beginning to relax. They might all get along. Josh could be a bit intense, and she wasn’t sure how Dad felt about him. But if she remained vigilant, she could probably keep them all happy. She did that kind of thing at work the whole time, a daily arena—the University of Hard Fucking Knocks—that soft Josh and lucky Vanessa never really had to set foot in. Josh wasn’t the problem, anyway. It was Vanessa who was loose, a liability: look how that attempt to talk to her about Dad had been chewed up and spat back at her. Helen was enjoying a measure of righteous grievance when Vanessa, who was one-handedly clearing plates from the table, stumbled slightly and dropped a small celadon-green bowl. It hit Josh’s plate, and a tiny piece of the bowl’s delicate rim jumped into Helen’s lap. “I have it,” she said, and carefully put her fingers around its parched new edges.

  Vanessa stood still, and lamented, “My favorite bowl! The only one I cared about.”

  Josh said that they could easily fix it; Alan added that she wouldn’t be able to see the crack. Helen, rubbing her fingers along the chalky shard, rather enjoyed the trivial torment.

  “You don’t understand. It’s not the bowl. Of course I can go to the potter who made it and get another one—he lives nearby. It’s the idea: everything that is most dear to you will eventually be taken from you.”

  “Then that’s a very important lesson to learn,” said Helen, without emotion.

  “Fuck it, leave me alone,” replied Vanessa.

  “All right, I’m going for a little walk,” said Alan, who took his coat and woolen cap, and almost ran for the door.

  19

  He wished he still smoked. He was breathing out volumes of steam, but the act wasn’t as satisfying as exhaling tobacco smoke. It was very cold, the air was thin, stilled; in the late afternoon light, everything had an atmosphere of earnest preparation for the long, bitter night ahead. Alan saw for the first time that Vanessa had a real view—of fields, and on the declining horizon a family of hills, bluish or bluish-pink in the twilight. They beckoned, as hills always had: How could you not want to go to them? They rose up like aspiration itself. He was a northerner, of course he loved hills. He once filled in a business questionnaire whose last query was “Name your ideal journey.” To which he had replied, “Driving north.” It had been initially amusing that Cathy, on a whim, had answered the same question, “Taking a train south.” He must ask Van what those hills were called … He and Cathy were twenty-two when they met, and were married a year later. Alan was naively, vulnerably infatuated. You never loved in the same way again. She was tall, embarrassingly even a little taller than him, “middle class,” and did that thing with her hair, layering a long plait, which he’d never seen any other woman do.

  Behind him, the door opened, and he heard a careful descent of the wooden stairs, and then the unbearable dry squeaking of footsteps on packed snow.

  “You didn’t get very far,” said Vanessa.

  “Too bloody cold.”

  Still, they were walking away from the house. He was anxious that they would now have to have the conversation, and was glad that the deep cold would enforce a short exchange.

  “You know I was mainly joking about the bowl? Appearances to the contrary.”

  “Ah, Van—now you’ll tell me that Helen was also joking when she provoked you to swear at her?”

  “No, I don’t think she was, alas.”

  “Look, I’m very simple, compared to you and Helen.” He had spent his life alongside melancholy and very complex women, beginning with his depressive grandmother: he could never say this aloud, of course. “Sometimes I get very tired, trying to be the one member of this family who is never ‘unhappy.’ Maybe this doesn’t look like it takes any effort. You just chalk it up to my buoyant temperament—‘It’s Dad, he’s like that, he’s naturally fairly cheerful and optimistic.’ But I’m not buoyant like a boat is, without any effort. I’m buoyant like a human being is. I have to work at it the whole time, or I’ll sink in the water.”

  “I’m sorry, you didn’t need to come here to keep me afloat.”

  “That’s not why I’m here. That’s not what I meant. I’m glad to be here, I’ve never seen where you live.”

  “And what do you think?”

  “About Josh?”

  Vanessa laughed with pride. “I didn’t just mean Josh. But sure, start with him.”

  Alan paused. He had the sense of being ever so slightly indulged by Josh, treated as the old geezer from a superseded generation, whitely ex officio.

  “Tell me about him.”

  “Daddy, you’ll love him! Yes, he’s earnest and intense and maybe a bit competitive. Jewish-confrontational. He likes to show off. Male stuff, peacockery. His father’s a Chicago lawyer and his mum is a psychiatrist. He has two younger brothers. As far as I can tell, their family life was like a perpetual court trial—statements for the defense, statements for the prosecution, nightly convictions at the dinner table. The three brothers had to talk about a randomly chosen subject for ten minutes, fluently, without running out of steam. That was the family game. That produces a certain kind of young man, I guess. But he’s not just super-intelligent. He’s the most moral, kindhearted, most fundamentally decent person you will meet.”

  He loved that she said “Daddy.” Pure balm. He discounted all the superlatives—they came with the romantic territory. But with what respect she spoke of Josh’s fancy family! “That was the family game.” The Querrys couldn’t compete with that. What was their family game? Monopoly and anger? Scrabble and quarrels? Watching Bruce Forsyth’s Generation Game on TV on Saturday nights? Alan was going to be a lawyer, and started studying law at university—but the real world was too attractive.

  “He’s certainly a good-looking fellow. Anyway, I’ve only just met hi
m. You’re very fond of him, that’s obvious.”

  “Yes, Dad, I’m very fond of him indeed.”

  “Here, let’s not get too far from the house—I don’t fancy a long walk back. By the way, those hills you can see from the house, on the far horizon, that great pinkish color they had a few minutes ago. Do they have a name?”

  “Of course. The Adirondacks.”

  “Ah, like the train.”

  “Like the hills.”

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Sounds ominous.” She was always alarmed, as a kid, when adults began an inquisition with “I’ve got a bone to pick with you.” It was so palpable—two birds tearing at flesh.

  “Does Josh actually live with you? I know that sounds strange. It’s just that there’s … no sign of his stuff or taste anywhere. It’s all you—your books, music, paintings, posters.” That’s why he liked it so much.

  “Well, how would you know which are my paintings and books? You’d be comparing them with your last visit? I’m sorry to be sharp with you, Daddy, but why are you playing the detective?”

  He didn’t say: because I was summoned here to find things out.

  “You’re right enough, I should have come here years ago … But I like that you always come to me in the summer, to Northumberland. It makes the house seem full again … Look, I suppose I was thrown by the fact that Josh wasn’t there when we arrived yesterday. And then your house—in a good way—seems to be so much your place.”

  “It’s a reasonable question, I’m sorry I took it the wrong way … Josh has a light footprint. He doesn’t believe in accumulating things. So yes, the house is largely mine, whatever that means when I only rent the place anyway. Also he travels a fair amount for his work. You know all about that. We like it that way.”

  The self-righteousness of “light footprint.” Why did Josh have to travel very much for his “work”? Most of what Josh did could be performed sitting at a desk in his dressing gown, one hand on the willing laptop and the other on his semi-tumescent dick.

  “Well, good,” he said.

  “Yes, good.”

  In despair at how poorly he was managing things, and with a little surge of punishment, he added: “Josh and Helen have been worried about you, but it seems there’s nothing much to worry about. According to you.” He was trying not to shiver; his body was rigid with effort.

  “Of course Josh has been anxious, he’s very compassionate. I haven’t been sleeping at all well, and when you don’t sleep, when you’re awake all night, you have all kinds of ‘bad thoughts.’ The old demons…” She sighed. “I … what happens is that I go to bed with a piece of music in my brain, and instead of soothing me, this music repeats itself in an endless loop in my head, it becomes a kind of torture—like how the Americans are using music as torture at Guantánamo, though they use Britney Spears or Metallica or whatever, while mine is a bit of Schubert or a Bill Evans riff. It’s highly unpleasant, is all I can say—it’s awful, really. But things have been a bit better since Christmas. Well, since I broke my arm, in fact.”

  “And when you’re tired, you can’t function properly, and sleeplessness causes depression. That’s well known.” He wanted to be helpful, to be practical, above all. The comparison with Guantánamo seemed histrionic.

  “If you haven’t experienced true insomnia, you have no idea! I broke my arm because I could barely see straight, I was so tired. I slipped on stairs I’ve been up and down for three years. But the odd thing is that two weeks before I broke my arm, it stopped working properly, almost as if my body knew I was going to break it.”

  “Stopped working?”

  “I had terrible pains from my elbow to my wrist, and it felt so heavy I could barely lift it.”

  “Look, in fact I’ve also had some periods of insomnia, and I did find, eventually, after a lot of searching around and some experimenting with different techniques, that one thing really helped. The right pillow—a nice hard one, and hypoallergenic. Mine was made by Laura Ashley, I don’t know if you could get that brand in America.” He knew he was clinging to a diversion, but didn’t know how to proceed.

  There was a sound from far away, an irregular pounding, the bigfoot tread of a large diesel engine, and then the noise began to swell, and suddenly it burst out like water, as if a deep river were flowing past them, very near, a huge river overflowing a valley, threshing and beating.

  “Where’s that?” He said it with delight.

  “Right down there, in the valley. About five hundred yards from where we’re standing. That’s not a passenger train, by the way, it’s freight. It’s all cargo from now until tomorrow. There’s a wonderfully long train I often hear at about three in the morning.”

  “I hope he blows the whistle,” he said, like a child. “I love that whistle.” Vanessa smiled at him, a smile of helpless affection, which he couldn’t see in the twilight. And the driver did blow the whistle, the big American horn—it moaned across the valley, plaintive and glad at once. The harmonica, the klaxon, the crushed notes again …

  As they approached the house, two darkish adult shapes, accompanied by a lawless and panting dog, crunched their way toward them. The shapes slowly gained definition: the man was round, the woman was thin; both were swaddled in layers of fat, shiny nylon—what Alan now thought of as engorged cagoules. Vanessa knew them, it seemed. She stopped, said hello, and introduced her father. Politenesses were exchanged; Alan explained that he was visiting for just under a week. “A week? Please stay longer,” said the man, who seemed unduly interested in the terms of Alan’s visit. Both the man and the woman had a kindly, soft-spoken manner, but also possessed the slightly condescending, sympathetic tone of the therapist, the nurse, the doctor. The dog wheezed on its leash, and jumped up. “Look after that arm, Vanessa! And God bless,” said the woman, as they walked on.

  They were next-door neighbors, and the last name was Dent. Jerry did something with computers. “They’re evangelical Christians,” said Vanessa.

  “Hence the ‘God bless’ bit.”

  “They’re pretty hard-core—they worship at a very lively, i.e., crazily charismatic church. But it’s not bad, as these places go, I have … Well, it’s very popular, has an electronic sign outside that says, ‘The Bread of Life: Baked Fresh Every Sunday.’ It’s famous.”

  “Oh dear. Near here?”

  “In Malta.”

  “Malta?”

  “Ha, I don’t notice the names anymore! Malta is just down the road. A nearby town.”

  “Like Troy.”

  “Exactly.”

  20

  Back inside the house, Josh was laughing, and showing something on his laptop to Helen. He extended his arm and brought Vanessa to his side—she still had her coat on, and her small woolen cap—and held her next to him, so that the three of them stood together, watching whatever it was they were watching. Alan stayed put. He wasn’t hostile to technology. It was the dominance of the screen he disliked, the ubiquity of these canny icons, the fluorescent saints staring down in luminous surveillance from every wall. The screen had replaced the window. The abolition of privacy combined with the intensification of privacy—everyone coddling his little relationship with his little device. That wasn’t his line—it was Vanessa’s, and he was misquoting it a bit: she had written that “technology threatens the abolition of privacy and simultaneously promises the privatization of privacy,” a phrase he didn’t understand at first, it had to be explained to him; and which he then considered pure genius, of course. (The conference was written up in The Boston Globe, a piece that quoted Van’s grand statement. He suddenly realized that it must have been the conference where Vanessa and Josh first met.)

  Alan looked over at the three of them: children, really. His first task was to bring Helen and Vanessa together after their foolish squabble about the bowl, but he was embarrassed to do it with Josh there. The sisters seemed to have made some kind of reconciliation, anyway. “We met the neighbors,” he said i
nstead. “They go to a church in Malta.” No one seemed impressed or surprised, they were still looking at the screen, so he added: “Better to worship at a Maltese church than at the Second Baptist Church here in town.”

  “Hey, you made that joke earlier,” said Helen, not looking up. “Disqualified.”

  “And no one appreciated it sufficiently,” said Alan. “So you get it again.”

  “The Second Baptist Church in Houston is, in fact, the second largest church in the United States,” said Josh. “Weird, eh? It’s a monster.”

  “How does he know this stuff?” asked Alan.

  “Vanessa has been to that church in Malta,” said Josh. Van looked awkward, and Alan thought that whatever Josh’s intentions, exposing her like that was a bit unkind. He must resist the temptation to come to his elder daughter’s defense. She could look after herself. He’d try to act as that Pope, the liberal one from the 1960s, put it: see everything, correct a little.

  Vanessa explained, in a soft voice, that she’d been curious, as a neighbor and “as a philosopher, if that’s not too pompous,” about the kind of church the Dents went to, and “to see just how crazy and science-fictiony it was.” The congregation was very kind, surprisingly liberal, the sermon quite intelligent, and she saw not one but two of her Skidmore students there. It’s important to stay open, she added.

  “You’re not suddenly going to get religious, are you?” asked Helen. She imbued “religious” with several shades of disdain.

  “Well, religious is just someone else’s definition of what is sacred,” said Vanessa. “Music is a kind of religion for you.”

  “I guess you’re right,” said Helen, minimizing the appearance of concession by paddling in her bag for her BlackBerry, pulling it out, and frowning at it. She was deciding to say something, perhaps: she closed her eyes, and stretched her long neck. She looked like a mother, thought Alan, for no reason he could quite explain.