The Loved Ones

by Mary-Beth Hughes

  You set the fire? Didn’t Kitty nearly die?

  I’m joking. What’s wrong with you?

  This is Billy’s place?

  Of course it is. You knew that.

  I don’t understand. I thought you bought this after the Wellco deal.

  No, that went south. And Billy needed his investment reimbursed more swiftly than the courts would allow.

  What are you talking about, south.

  We’re just doing Billy a favor. Giving him the house he deserves. None of the other indentures could deliver.

  We?

  Me. Obviously. Kitty is my muse. Lionel smiled and adjusted one of the dangling black lights. And Mrs. Ivy is like an engineering department. She keeps all the paperwork straight. Hey—Lionel sniffed the air—do you smell something burning?

  The house smelled like all of Lionel’s houses, like every place they’d been together since their mother died and Lionel took over. The bleach, the BayRhum a strange salute to their long-lost father, the carpet dust like the house of an old woman who’d held on too long to her belongings, where did it come from? But here it was.

  Where’s Mrs. Ivy? Junior’s in a snit down there. The baby’s muted wails began to sound desperate. It made Nick angry. You’re a prick, you know, he said. Jean is completely heartbroken.

  What are you talking about? Come on, you’re jet-lagged. You’re out of it. Stay here. Don’t go back to some stupid hotel.

  Fuck you. Why would you name her that.

  Name my own baby? I think I’m on solid ground here, guy.

  What about Cubbie, your namesake, never to be replaced.

  Jean is fine, Nick. She told me so. All right? She blessed this, I mean literally, you guys are the godparents. We’re doing it at Thanksgiving. It’s all set.

  I don’t fucking believe you. You lie for breathing. Nick angry at himself now, he’d never been able to say anything but generic curses to Lionel, protecting him. You were a scum to Cubbie, he tried. And now you’re a sanctimonious ass to poor deluded Kitty. Cubbie hardly saw the back of you when he was so sick. When he was dying you never came, not once, not even once, you stupid con.

  Nick.

  Fuck that, and what hole have you gotten me into with Billy Byron? What’s the big plan, what’s he waiting for? What did you sell me for this time?

  Sell you? I told him you’re talented. Hardly a stretch. Lionel quenched a yawn. Come on, all the old people need to sleep. You too. Mrs. Ivy will be up soon and on duty, then we’ll find you a bed.

  Just tell me what Byron wants.

  Lionel tucked his kimono around his belly. Smoothed the top of his head. Nick waited. Lionel sighed.

  He wants you to take over UK-Europe. UK first for a few months, then the whole shit pile.

  No, said Nick.

  You’re welcome, laughed Lionel. But Nick was already stumbling down the half-lit stairs. He stopped. What does it get you? That’s what I want to know. Then I’ll have a half chance of not being destroyed in the payout.

  Destroyed?

  Just tell me, Lionel.

  Peace of mind?

  Nick didn’t say good-bye to Kitty, but made himself close the front door gently. One of the babies had been colicky and now he couldn’t remember which. Maybe Lily, because Jean always made the joke about lifting infant Cubbie as if he was made of glass for fear he’d be the monster Lily had been, yes, that was it. But Cubbie was a good baby and Jean always kept him close. He looked just like her and she loved him. It was so easy.

  11

  Five in the morning, the phone bleated beside him and it was Jack the driver. Sorry to disturb, sir, but I’m asked to deliver you to the office.

  Now? Nick watched Jean turn again and sigh. She’d been restless all night and they’d had a long whispered argument about Lionel and his plans. But only the latest of many. They agreed it had been a rough, lonely beginning for Jean and Lily in London and Jean was already aching to go home for Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving? They just got here. Besides it was the first he’d heard of a baptism. When did she say yes to that charade? Her face was away from him now, her hair streaky and long on the pillow. Every time he looked at her she got blonder. He touched a strand. Still soft.

  Sir? Jack said. I’ll be waiting outside in five minutes.

  It’s the middle of the night, Jack.

  Beg pardon, early morning. There’s someone to see you.

  All right. Okay. He rubbed his face. Do I have time for a shave?

  I’ve been asked to bring you straightaway, sir.

  He’d heard about Billy’s unannounced visits. Half the office had probably gotten sneak warning calls late last night. The place would be humming like midday no doubt. But when he got to the lobby at Duke Street, Nick needed to find the lights. No small thing. The switches were tucked behind a panel disguised to mesh with the wallpaper, a hand-painted, repeating pattern of a silver perfume bottle on a pink ground said to match Bunny Byron’s complexion as a new bride. A fable.

  Nick took the elevator to 5. The lights were already bright in marketing. His secretary, Tania, sat typing at the desk perpendicular to his door, back straight, an anxious crease between her eyebrows.

  What in the world? he said and smiled. But she started and stood up.

  Mr. Slater’s waiting to see you, sir. She nodded toward the half-open door, taking a quick breath.

  Nick frowned as if she wasn’t making sense. I’ll bring you some coffee, sir, right away.

  He pushed the door wider to find Irving Slater standing at the window looking down at the rooftop of the neighboring building. Lousy view, Irving said.

  Not so bad.

  We can do better.

  Nick went over and stood next to him, looked down at the slate-topped dormers. A triple chimney next door needed work, bricks lay in shards, the pointing collapsed. In the bare beginning light, it looked moody, paintable. He liked it.

  I’m fine right here.

  Sends the wrong message, said Irving. This is the servants’ quarters, don’t you think? I mean it’s got to be. I can touch the damn ceiling. But he didn’t bother to demonstrate.

  Nick sighed and took a seat on the narrow navy sofa. He pushed aside a stack of British Vogues, all tagged and sorted by marketing resources spent.

  Irving Slater sat on the windowsill and let his eyes close. This wasn’t my idea.

  Of course not.

  Remember that.

  I believe you. What are you talking about?

  Billy wants you to take over. He likes your ingenuity.

  Nick laughed and then coughed when Tania came in with the tray of coffee. She poured two cups then left, closing the door very quietly. Nick offered Irving a cup and he took it.

  Effective immediately.

  It makes no sense, said Nick, sitting back.

  You’re telling me.

  Is this about Lionel in some way?

  No. I don’t think so. It’s instinct; that’s all Billy said and that he wanted me in London at the office before you got here. A surprise party. He loves that kind of stuff. So, surprise. Happy?

  No.

  Well, neither am I. It’s a mistake. You have no experience. And frankly you’re not that smart. The rest. Why bother going into it now, we’ve been over it.

  Nick didn’t respond. He felt a wave of exhaustion. He hadn’t slept well since coming back from New York. Seeing Lionel had put him in a foul temper and now here was Irving Slater looking like death’s messenger standing in his office before sunrise.

  I’ll talk to Sheldon when he gets in, said Irving. And then fly back to New York this afternoon. To give Billy the good news. Give Sheldon the bad, Billy the good. Irving smiled.

  Nick shook his head.

  Don’t thank me.

  No.

  But Nick stood and put down his cup and Irving extended his hand.

  A half hour later Nick was at Twenty-one Cheyne Walk looking for the buzzer marked Mr. and Mrs. S. Walpole. He’d been here only once bef
ore when Sheldon and Tandy insisted on inviting all their favorite London friends to meet newcomers Jean and Nick. Now Tandy Walpole opened the door in a blue wool bathrobe, patting a set of curlers under a scarf. Sorry! I’m a sight! she laughed, then welcomed him inside.

  12

  Lily came home from school and once again found her mother’s new friend Emma Hocking collapsed in a graceful twist on the drawing room sofa. Her slender neck craned back in happy disbelief at some bit of gossip Lily’s mother was retelling. Usually about Lionel, who Emma knew from his many trips through London before they’d arrived. He hadn’t come even once since the move, a story in itself—Nick was being impossible; he’d canceled Thanksgiving this week!—but her mother usually stuck to the old stories.

  Now Lionel’s on his very best behavior, or so he says. Her mother tossed up her hands in surrender, and Emma laughed, lifting her own hands. They looked like they were doing some kind of sofa ballet.

  Studied at the Joffrey, all right? she’d told Lily first thing, the day she arrived, as if Lily had confronted her. Sleek and streamlined, no sequins or shirts cut to the navel for Emma. Her mother trimmed back the new gear accordingly. Fewer tassels, more gunmetal velvet trousers and beige suede hot pants cut to show off her slim hips and mask a very slight belly. Miniature! Emma cried out. Practically invisible! Her father had used the word pudgy, but that was an extremely bad day. A day, as her mother pointed out, when the doctor Cecil Bathrick ended up in their bedroom at midnight administering the epinephrine again. Her father’s asthma was aggravated by the London air, and more than once in these early months, he’d needed an intervention.

  Not as scary as it looks, love, Emma told Lily. She had a bit of asthma herself. As if to prove it, she removed a tiny silver peanut-shaped pill holder on a chain in her purse. If you ever spot me panting on the floor, she said, solemnly, just one of these. I’ll be right as rain. And Lily agreed to intervene.

  You don’t want the epinephrine bit if you can help it. Not that it’s bad, not at all, and it doesn’t hurt, for all that the bastard is sticking a prong into the middle of your chest. They numb the skin first. No. The problem is the moodiness. Just appalling. A real nuisance for your dear old dad.

  Emma knew from the inside everything her father was up against in London and she was here to offer her help. Don’t know why I bother, frankly. She laughed. In fact she laughed in the same style she liked to use when her father was right there. Hand to her breastbone, shoulders forward as if to protect the delicate nipples beneath ivory silk that were suddenly all Lily could look at. Emma had a genius for directing attention all around her body. Lily wanted the opposite, to send the attention away, to fling it out onto the street to be run over by taxis. Especially when she was caught and held in the unhappy gaze of her mother. But the best thing about Emma was how distracting she was. Her mother relaxed and laughed in ways that felt very old to Lily, as if her mother had been saving in a special storage this set of gestures and smiles.

  For Jean, Emma had a different laugh than the one she offered to Nick. Chin up, eyes blinking bright with appreciation. You’re darling, she’d say catching her breath. Then to Lily, whispering, though Jean was right there: It’s your mother, love. She’s the one who’s interesting. But don’t tell his nibs.

  Emma was all stretch, no strength, muscles like taffy. Huge problem, she said, hovering above the great silver ashtray with a brown cigarette as if she might fail to make the reach otherwise. Everything Emma did was riveting and that’s why Derek Voose found her invaluable. He was lending her out—a loan, mind you, don’t get any grand ideas—to organize a party to announce Nick’s new promotion. King of the Bloody World! said Emma. But to Lily it seemed that all Emma and her mother did was talk about New Jersey.

  Today the story about Lionel was a sad one, the fire story, and Emma, listening, forgot to make a gimmick of her hands or her enormous eyes. She listened as if dumbstruck, startled out of her role and mission. This, Lily thought, might be why her mother held Emma’s attention. Since London, she’d begun telling all the Cubbie stories, but in a hidden way; today Cubbie hid behind Lionel. Lionel at the water’s edge in their backyard with a brush fire early in the morning. Lionel crying, poking at shards of toys with a rake handle, making a foul plastic stink that filled the house for days after. That he’d barely made a dent in Cubbie’s things was beside the point. It’s only a ritual, Lionel had said. And her father, in a kind of stupor—her mother said later: why had they ever let Lionel spend the night anyway?—punched him hard, but in a strange spot, the throat. Lionel suddenly couldn’t breathe and turned purple. But her father couldn’t see that; he was so angry, or the putrid smoke was blinding him and making the tears run down his cheek, so her mother had to save Lionel herself. Mistake! she rolled her eyes, cue for a laugh, but Emma didn’t smile.

  So I made him stand up her mother said. I walked him out of the smoke, and talked to him like a baby who can’t stop crying. It was like that, his refusal to breathe. I stroked his chest and soothed him; all while Nick is dousing Lionel’s infernal pile of Cubbie’s train sets and car models. All the things he’d made himself. Even in the hospital, he loved to assemble the models. Nick had lost his mind; they both had. Lionel purple and looking like a heart attack. Me, holding him, calming him back to breathing. Nick taking water from the river in his hands and dousing the fire with sprinkles, weeping. Of course, I chose the wrong brother to comfort. I worry still. Her hand went to her mouth and her eyes wide with a blasted look, as if all expression was already done, like her eyes had expired. That’s why her mother wore the fake lashes now and all the other stuff, Lily thought, because her eyes didn’t really say anything anymore. All of Cubbie’s models were lost except one. Her mother pointed to the gray battleship that’s found a place on the piano between two new candelabra, her latest find from the Silver Vaults.

  Nick took a very long time to forgive me. As for Lionel, we didn’t see him or hear a word until the indictment, and then it was like nothing had ever happened.

  Right, Emma nodded, frowning as if her mother had raised a questionable color choice.

  It was nothing in the end. Some screeching in the papers. It all finally came down to a suspended sentence for something very small. Thanks to my father, because he—

  And Lionel?

  No, he was out of it. The magician.

  I’d heard something about this.

  Lily! Her mother finally noticed her again, stretched out on the rug beside the backgammon table. Why are you eavesdropping?

  I’m not!

  Emma’s smile was meant to be understood as false but winning. Lily imitated it as she peeled herself off the carpet. Back in her room she pretend grinned into a wicker oval mirror. Emma Hocking said she was strategically placed to offer aid and guidance to both Lily and her mother because her age was nearly the halfway point between them. But closer to my mother, Lily said. By a year, mate, don’t be so effing literal. So, Emma was twenty-five. Her hair short and auburn, eyes gray—sometimes sapphire, she insisted—tiny bones, long limbs, conical breasts easily observed, to Lily’s fascination, through the Italian silk menswear shirts she wore, tailored to fit just her. No makeup except spiked black lashes and a plain beige lip gloss. A man’s jewel band wristwatch slid up and down along the tendons of her forearm. My father’s, she said, with something like reverence. Lily stared. Her own father had a new watch, a gift just last week delivered by courier with a note—ceremony to follow!—from Billy Byron when her father was named managing director UK. Maybe it would be hers one day. Preposterous and ostentatious her mother declared, a diamond wind-stem on a man?

  Uncle Lionel wears one!

  That’s precisely the point, said her mother and then looked confused.

  But Emma Hocking would change all that; she’d soon make Lily’s mother see things differently. Wears you out, darling, all the boy tricks, she said. All their little games. But wasn’t it Emma who supplied the information her mother was
missing. Filling her in on the people who crowded the cocktail parties and the Sunday brunches on the King’s Road. Who were the film people, who were the oil people, who were the untouchables and hangers-on. And she was the first to point out Vivienne Vimcreste, though at the time she seemed like another flashy girl among many. Her mother looked a little happier already. Lily began to sleep through the night. Some important task had been lifted.

  For the last two weeks of October, she went to class and did her homework as if nothing else had ever required her attention. Her teachers stopped thanking her for deigning to join them. She began to know the faces of her classmates in repose, just listening or bored. Lily watched their sleepy faces, mouths ajar, eyes cloudy, listening to the drone of their teacher go on and on about Prince Myshkin, and she felt a powerful affection. Especially for Lawrence Weatherfield who once winked at her before dropping his head on his fist for a nap. For a moment she felt as normal as she had at St. Tom’s, where every curve of every eyebrow was known to her. Lawrence had eyebrows bleached nearly white by the Saudi Arabian sun, brown hair like the center of the black-eyed Susans still blooming right now in Momo’s backyard.

  Now listen to me, my love, Emma Hocking said one afternoon, laughing. Listen very carefully. But she studied Lily without speaking. Brought herself upright on the sofa. Emma shook her head, mouth etched in a line of mild disgust, and rummaged in her vast handbag for a tube. A color corrective. Give it a whirl.

  Lily opened the tube and sniffed. A swift chemical scent like peroxide, no masking sweetness. That’s right, the real thing. Not for amateurs, mind you. She carried these things around because, really, love, you never know what you’re going to run up against. Derek Voose routinely gave Emma his most difficult clients, because she had the touch. How fascinating that men’s faces could be improved. Her father put on a bronzer now every day, right after he blew dry his hair with the round brush. This blustery rain-choked afternoon, when Lily came in from school, Emma cried, The sight of you, good lord. And this is when Lily first began hearing about Peggy Moffitt. Emma had determined, and apparently her father agreed in principle, that Lily, with a little discipline, could be her double. So Lily, to her mother’s nodding approval, became one of Emma’s projects, too.