by Susan Swan
Dale Paul said Earl was going to be mayor of Chicago. Ha! What a joke.
Let’s not talk about Earl. But listen, Dale Paul works hard. He’s not lazy like some of our friends who inherited money.
Ouch! I hope you’re not thinking of me.
Of course not! You’re a working journalist.
8
SHAME ON YOU, Nugent! For a fact-finding journalist, you are dead wrong about my predictions. I said Earl was going to be mayor of New York. Point being, Earl’s success has always been astonishing, considering he used to be the boy who thought an oyster fork was the right utensil to use on Irene’s Thanksgiving turkey. However, it’s true I assumed Meredith and Nugent would be famous too, and instead they have turned out to be ordinary Joes, to borrow Pater’s term for the losers among us.
Suddenly, I think of my brush pens. Sure enough, they’re still in the drawer in the bedside table. I test one of them out on a notepad. The ink in its cartridge has remained fresh, so the pen makes a clear, flowing mark on the page. Brush pens, in case you don’t know, are used in Japanese and Chinese calligraphy, and those eastern scribes have a few tricks up their sleeves, sleights of hand that remain out of reach for a western amateur such as myself.
9
I PICK UP the Q and A again.
Was Dale Paul a difficult kid? Bear with me, Meredith. I need you to tell me everything as if I’m not familiar with any of it. Okay?
Okay. I think I told you Dale Paul was angry when I came to live with them. He wasn’t used to competing for attention with a sibling. Googie put pressure on him to be nice. Googie used to recite a nursery rhyme when he was being difficult. It’s a verse by A.A. Milne about the English King John, who had been forced to sign the Magna Carta: “King John was not a good man — He had his little ways. And sometimes no one spoke to him for days and days and days.” Dale Paul could anticipate what Googie was going to say, and he would throw his head back and shout, “Har dee har har!” That was our way of saying lol, remember?
I do.
He had his little ways, as the rhyme says. Uncle Joe liked to tell Dale Paul he was the boy who said the dog ate his homework. But Dale Paul was always kind to me. He and I used to play-act Queen Elizabeth’s coronation. I was the queen. Dale Paul played the Archbishop of Canterbury and he placed the royal sceptre and the rod of mercy in my hands. Sometimes Uncle Joe came in to watch. When Dale Paul set the cardboard crown on my head, Uncle Joe prodded me to say, “I hereby give my life to my subjects!” By the way, we didn’t use real sceptres. Dale Paul carried brass fire pokers, one slightly thicker than the other. They were also quite heavy, and Uncle Joe was cross the day Dale Paul dropped one of the pokers on his foot.
The Q and A ends with Meredith talking about the novel experience of being interviewed. (Novel for her, perhaps.) My cousin is wrong about the poker, though. She is the one who dropped it on Pater’s toes. Meredith was a clumsy, big-boned girl, always tripping over her own two feet.
10
Meredith Paul
MEREDITH FOLLOWS DALE Paul and Caroline up the steps of All Saints Episcopal Church, trying not to look at the prison guard walking a few paces behind Dale Paul. It feels humiliating to come into her aunt’s church with such an escort. The humiliation has nothing to do with her, of course, even though insensitive people suggest she is implicated. Unfortunately, her cousin has begun to babble about the history of the church; how it was built with stones from the nearby fields because his old friend’s maternal great-grandfather, who sat on its board, wanted the Long Island church to resemble a rural English parish. Thankfully, Caroline puts a finger to her lips and hushes him.
Unexpectedly, her cousin comes to a halt and stands gaping at a bearded young man sitting in the back of the church. Meredith looks too. There is something familiar about the young man, although for the life of her, she can’t say what. Is he the child of a neighbour? All at once she knows. But how could it be? Davie is dead. For one breathless moment, the young man looks their way, then he turns his head and she can’t see his face.
Hey, you two! Caroline hisses. Meredith nods and she and Dale Paul follow Caroline down the aisle to the family pew. The Pauls’ ancient aunts (whose names Meredith still confuses) avert their eyes at the sight of her cousin being escorted by a prison guard. Only the oversized woman with a rolling chin and frizzy hair gives them a welcoming smile. At first, she doesn’t understand the meaning of the pitiful, half-strangled sounds Esther is making. Then she realizes Esther is talking about Davie not being there.
Above their heads, the minister plays his old-timey part in his white surplice over his black cassock, his liver-spotted hands tugging at his long ecclesiastical scarf. We have brought nothing into this world, he drones. And it is certain we can carry nothing out …
Trying to follow along, Meredith opens her prayer book, and that’s when Tim reaches over and takes her hand. Startled, she looks up and catches Dale Paul glowering at them. She glances quickly away. So now he knows how she and Tim feel about each other. Despite herself, she shivers. Surely, Dale Paul can’t ruin that too?
11
Dale Paul
THE SERVICE IS nearly over. The congregation sings, “There Is a Green Hill Far Away.” Meredith and I used to sing our own version, mouthing, “There is a green still far away,” and we giggled while Pater scowled down at us. The next thing I know I am shuffling out of the church. I look around for the bearded young man, but he must have left by the side entrance. Feeling discombobulated, I send Nugent off in a cab while I climb into my time-honoured place, the passenger seat next to Meredith. We make an awkward social grouping; Martino is in the back seat with Caroline. Everybody sits stiff as fence posts, feigning interest in the streets of Manhasset, whose motley shops and skuzzy restaurants flow past the car windows.
I give up on small talk and look out the window too, and there, in the doorway of the unsavoury Greek takeout place, stands my former client, Gyro George, as the girls in the office called him. His correct name is Giorgios. Gruff and kind-hearted, Gyro George stands smoking with his waiter, a scrawny pickup artist named Spiro, who likes to offer his smelly Greek cigarettes to the customers: Assos for the men, Karelia Lights for the ladies. I wave, and the two men look startled; then Giorgios and Spiro both give me the finger and hurry inside.
From the back seat, Caroline puts a consoling hand on my shoulder, and for the first time, it strikes me how well Gyro George is doing. Of course, I, too, did well once.
How I loved America then; the best thing about it was how easily people believe what you say, not like my northern brethren, who lack the ability to appreciate the art of the pitch. A person who lives north of the border is too skeptical to understand the vision you need or the benefits that accrue when someone like me, who believes in what I’m saying, can inspire confidence in someone like you.
Do you know the story of the American customs official who asks a man to declare his nationality? I have a dual passport, the man exclaims. I am both Canadian and American. The guard isn’t satisfied, so he keeps questioning the man until finally the guard asks: If your country went to war, what would you do?
It depends on the war and why it was being fought, the man replies. The customs official goes all smiley-faced. Now I know, the guard says. You’re Canadian, and the man with the dual passport nods warily.
I ask you truly, what can be done with such people?
12
NOT MANY GUESTS come to the wake for Mother. Most of her old friends are dead, and the others don’t want to share a drink with me. When Aunt Georgia arrives in her Cadillac Escalade, I rush to help her: Don’t you touch me! she hisses. Your poor mother! How could you sell the house out from under her?
I catch Meredith’s eye, and she throws me an understanding glance from the back porch where she stands greeting our guests. The service must have leeched away my cousin’s strength because she doesn�
��t hurry to my rescue. Nugent stands beside her, his round brown eyes grave with concern. Every so often he shoots her a quick, reassuring grin and she smiles back.
Nugent has always admired my cousin who seemed more sophisticated than the knock-kneed girls our own age. She used to read racy French novels like Bonjour Tristesse and she would opine on the merits of free love as casually as if she were talking about the health benefits of fresh orange juice. So once, as a favour to my old school chum, I persuaded Meredith to take him to her school dance. They were doing the polka when he twisted her around so recklessly he stepped on her crinoline; there was an ominous rip, and it fell onto the auditorium floor. For a terrible moment, her undergarment lay there, limp as roadkill. The other dancers stared in shock while her girlfriends stood shoulder to shoulder pinning the crinoline back on my blushing cousin. I watched from the sidelines, feeling awkward. She and Nugent have certainly had their ups and downs.
And now they are enjoying a détente while I am persona non grata. Nobody wants to talk to me, or if they do, they don’t want the others to see.
I turn my back on the demented gabfest and set off down Half Moon Lane, the breeze from the sound burning my cheeks. I want to smoke a joint I found in the pocket of an old coat. Looking around for the right place, I spot the For Sale sign on the Rigbys’ house. So they are selling their place too. Never mind. It is too late for anyone to do anything now. I head for their pond. Wild turkeys and indigenous waterfowl once frolicked there amid plants native to North America. Other flora and fauna weren’t allowed.
It takes me a moment to understand I’m not alone. The bearded young man I saw at the back of the church stands half-hidden in the phragmites, a plebian grass that grows by our local rivers. I start toward him eagerly. When I am almost at the pond, I feel a prickle of recognition; it’s the same skinny frame, the same slouching slope of the shoulders.
Is that you, Davie? I call. The young man sees me and runs as fast as he can down the lane. It was my son. I’m sure of it, but who will believe me? Feeling adrift, I walk home and peer through the living room window. Arnie, my ex-wife’s caddy, inclines his noggin with its high flat-top toward Esther while Arnie’s father, Josh, sits staring into space. Esther is talking earnestly about something, and Arnie appears to be agreeing.
When in doubt, avoid, ignore and evade, my boyhood version of I came, I saw, I conquered, Julius Caesar’s stirring pronouncement after vanquishing Gaul.
Turning my back on the crowd, I hurry off to the potting shed. I built it for Mother the year she came to live with us. No one will search for me here. I lock the door and light up the joint. A pair of Mother’s ancient secateurs lie flat on a trestle table, as if she put them there only moments before. Mother and Sofia liked to plant indigenous sedge in the spots where my ex-wife wanted ornamental African grasses. Esther would go into a tizzy watching them from the living room window. She’d invite them inside for coffee, and a few minutes later they’d be back outside digging up more of the exotic grasses until Dieter gently tried to stop them.
To my dismay, the pot is making me feel light-headed. And now, another shock: Martino’s sleepy face in the shed window. He bangs on the door. I bury the evidence in a flowerpot and step outside. He eyes me distrustfully.
You trying to shake me?
I can’t smoke inside.
Yeah, okay. The register of Martino’s voice slips into his usual affable tone. Together we walk back across the lawn to the house.
13
OUR GUESTS HAVE departed; even the serious boozehounds like Esther have handed over their drink glasses like employees tendering their resignations. Through the doorway into the kitchen, I watch Meredith finish tossing a green salad. Before I went to prison, that would have been Irene’s job, yet Meredith looks extraordinarily happy to be doing it.
Absently, she pats her braids, which have been wound in an elegant fashion around her head. Now she is coming through the door toward me, carrying a portable phone. The new hairdo is not unpleasing. Mother would have been delighted to see how Meredith smartened herself up for the funeral.
Nugent follows my cousin through the doorway, pushing a glass trolley with our lunch: the freshly tossed greens and a dish of shrimps on a bed of long-grained rice. My old friend must have been cracking one of his asinine jokes because the pair are laughing and smiling at each other. I feel a jealous twinge.
Where on earth is Caroline?
At the store buying groceries. Meredith gives me a tight-lipped smile and hands over the portable phone, her hand clamped across the receiver. It’s Esther, she whispers. I think she’s drunk.
I take the phone into the den. At first, I don’t absorb what Esther is saying. Then it hits me: she wants a funeral for Davie. I tell Esther about the two sightings, the first at the church and the next by Ted and Sofia’s house. Esther says I am talking nonsense.
You don’t understand! I bellow. Davie is alive and well.
She hangs up. My ex-wife can be remarkably obstinate. I put the phone back on its hook and go off to eat lunch with Martino.
Half an hour later, I slip out to the patio to catch the sea air and find Nugent putting used drink glasses on a tray. When he sees me, he smiles shyly, and for a moment he turns into the timid boy I knew at school. Then the moment passes and he changes back again into the burly older man whose soft brown eyes nest in his face like a vestigial echo of our youth. We sit down on some wrought iron chairs, and for the first time I feel myself relax. After all, not many of my old friends are speaking to me.
14
I’M SORRY ABOUT your mother, Nugent is saying. You’ve had two big personal losses. And the news hasn’t been kind lately — do those stories in the media bother you? He is referring to a blast of unfortunate publicity about Thomas Schroeder Limited.
Not at all. I can’t take responsibility for what Schroeder did.
His smile dips slightly. But Schroeder was one of your companies.
It was, indeed. And its method of evaluating pensions is a standard in the industry, although you realize, don’t you, that when Schroeder started, the average citizen lived ten years less than they do now?
He frowns and I consider telling him about the morning Marcia Gallagher, my director of investor relations, charged into my office with the news that our pension funds were running short of money. I promised to look into it, and when I did, I was given the same answer Schroeder gave to anyone who asked: Yes, the growth rate has stopped, but there is no reason to worry because the growth rate in pension funds goes up and down and one day it will start going up again. Except that the growth rate of pensions didn’t go anywhere but down.
He looks at me curiously. Well, you always liked to push the river.
Are you saying I court danger unnecessarily, good sir?
Let me put it this way. You create drama wherever you go.
Maybe so. Now I have a question for you, Nugent. Was it you who told the headmaster about our game of chance at Munson Hall? You can tell me now. I don’t mind.
He looks off at the sound, where sailboats are jostling for position on the starting line despite the fact that sailing season is over.
I told you years ago it was the prefect Thompson, Nugent says irritably. His father owned the newspaper.
Ah, I’d forgotten Thompson was the villain. I beg your pardon. How can I make it up to you?
Well, there is something. I’d like to interview you for the New York Times Magazine, he replies, taking me by surprise.
Really? Will readers find an article about an inmate amusing? I build a steeple-fingered pyramid in front of my face, aware I’m being coy.
I’ll talk about how you’re doing a financial workshop for the inmates. It will be early publicity for your book.
I think for a moment. All right — provided you don’t rehash my case. I’ve already told you how I feel about that dreary subj
ect. And now I have a question for you. What are your intentions toward my kister?
We’re just friends, Nugent splutters. Okay? She’s been helping me with my research.
A likely story.
He looks at me in surprise, and I smile broadly.
15
I AWAKE FROM a nightmare, my skin unpleasantly sticky with perspiration. Caroline has come and gone, permitting me liberties that no gentleman should divulge, but without her usual ardour, and so I failed to perform in the way I hoped. After she fled, I lay for a long time, wide-eyed and desolate. And then, when I at last fell asleep, I dreamt about pleading my court case before Arnie, Sofia, and Ted. They wore black judges’ robes and sat perched on the horizon line. I had to look twice to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. They were a doleful group if ever there were one.
Dear friends, I exclaimed in my nightmare. I am not a felon.
My male accusers flew about, screeching inanely while Sophia pecked savagely at her feathers. Why didn’t I notice the feathers before? My old pals had turned into crows. Or were they magpies? (I was never very good at identifying birds).
Birds — jailbirds. My tawdry unconscious has been making a joke at my expense. While I implored them to listen, Sofia and Arnie flew off, their dark robes flapping. Only Ted stayed behind. Dale Paul, I forgive you, he cackled. When I regarded him stonily, he ducked his head under his inky wing and began to weep. That’s how it ended. With my amiable, forgiving pal sobbing his heart out.
16
I PUT AWAY thoughts of Ted Rigby and leap out of bed. Thank god I am a free man for a few more hours. In a state of mild ecstasy, I shave with my hard-edged razor, running it over my facial zones — up my neck and across my cheeks until my skin tingles. Luckily, Meredith hasn’t packed my things, so my aftershave lotions are right where I left them. Not for me the cheap unguents in the commissary. Oh no! Inscribed in fine print on the side of the squeeze bottle is my organic shaving soap with quaint messages from its founder: Full truth our god, half-truth our enemy; we’re all one or none, and so on and so forth. And then the delightful choice of two shaving balms: toner from Giorgio Armani if I need soothing or Thayer’s Witch Hazel to pep me up. Today I choose the witch hazel, pat-ting it on lavishly before I emerge ruthlessly shiny and clean-shaven, only to find Meredith and Caroline glaring at me from my doorway.
