Ivy is taken aback by this display of sheer emotion—the place is crawling with artists, but it takes a lawyer to show a little honest sap.
Almost under control, Ken wants to make a speech.
“I want to tell you all, I’ve had this photo, the original of this, beside my bed for the last week, while I’ve been trying to work out what to do. And a couple of my daughter’s drawings that I stole. They made my decision harder and easier. I won’t go on about all that now, while you’re all—but I hope you know, Hugh, that I do—that it, you’ve—” His throat closes.
Della stands to rescue him. She is calm. “Quick, Ken, drink some of this port with the big fat 30 on the label. It must have been bottled about the same time that you and I were getting bottled that night, All Souls night, when we were babies no older than these babies now bringing cake and port around. I’ll help you with the paint-by-numbers—we’ll fill in the outlines of each other’s faces, as we’ve done all this time. All my wrinkles, all my beauty, you’ve given me these last thirty years. And I account for your grey hair at least as much as Elly does. My friends, you are so kind to help us celebrate!”
She’s going to lift her glass, but Burton jumps up from his seat. “Boy! Your present! Kitchen!” He snaps his fingers, and Jason slides the wrapped box in front of Della.
“Oh,” Della says, seeming a little dismayed. “This shouldn’t be a present occasion, not really—Newell, honestly, you shouldn’t have.”
“Open it later,” Newell suggests.
“How do you know he shouldn’t until you’ve opened it?” Burton demands. “Open it now!”
Newell lifts his hands to his face, and for an instant Ivy can imagine what it must be like to have Burton on one’s back night and day. In his softest voice, Newell says, “Open the little present, Della, and try to be polite.”
Della blows him a surrendering kiss. “Okay,” she says. “Come help, Ken.” Ken moves down the table to see what she’s unwrapping: a creamy inlaid box with a silver hook. “Mother-of-pearl! Oh, beautiful.” Della pulls the pin on its little chain out of the hook, and opens the lid. It is a travel box. Peach velvet trays hold bottles with silver lids. Pearl-handled nail files and other mysterious implements, each in their ordained place, the ideal of ordered, elegant living. A silver tag on one side, HERS, and on the other, HIS.
“A marriage in a box,” Hugh says.
At that there is a little silence. Della touches the HIS pearl-handled knife and the spoon, spooned behind it. She runs a hand along the box, its smoothness conveyed to each observer’s hand by the ease of her gesture. She touches the satin ribbons meant to lift the velvet tray out.
“Fine, now back to the party,” Newell says. He reaches out a long hand and closes the lid, slowly enough that Della can pull her fingers out of the way. The mother-of-pearl tiles flash, opalescent in the candlelight. “It’s nothing, it’s a bagatelle. You can examine it later.”
“You are so kind,” she says to Newell.
“I found it in Jasper’s shop, you should thank him.”
She goes to where he is slumbering in the corner, leans over the back of his chair, and puts a hand on Jasper’s sleeping shoulder. She kisses his head, her eyes more darkly hollowed than Ivy has seen them before. She shakes his shoulder, a little. But it’s all right, Jasper wakes and stretches and manages a wavery dentured smile.
“Thank you,” Della says and gestures to the box on the table.
“Usually they’re broken up,” he says, nodding. “Rare to find one intact.”
Hugh stands and calls, “Jason! The widows!” Jason runs. “My friends, my family …” Hugh pauses, and Ivy looks up, worried that he might be in trouble. But he carries on (as Jason hands him the first bottle of champagne and stands ready with the next), untwisting the wire and foil and taking the cork, hands gentle on the bottle: “I wish our darling Mimi, who loves Della and Ken, was here to help us celebrate—and Ruth, who’s sitting with her now.”
He turns the bottle and the cork releases with that velvet clonking sound we love so well. He pours and pours and pours, and lifts at last his own glass.
“All of you who are here, let us praise our friends, absent and present, and help me raise a glass to the wish that—that you will never die, not one of you.”
(L)
Great Pindar’s girth expands to take in everything Jason puts in front of him, sampling all the other cakes to see what he and Léon missed.
L likes Léon, but is too scared of Gareth to look at him. Only the outer outlines, the shape sitting at Hugh’s table. From time to time she steals a look. Now he’s staring over at the framed pictures Hugh left in a line on the bookshelf—the boats her dad didn’t even actually look at.
Her dad never looks at her mom’s work. As if it is some intimate thing he’s not supposed to see, her panties strung on a line in the bathroom. Not that she ever does that, not even in their own bathroom. They are delicate with each other, each keeping private.
I’m not going to be like that. Nobody can be with me, L thinks, unless they be with me.
Jason, going by behind her, snakes a hand in under her arm and through to reach around and touch, touch, her breast. Then he is past, carrying champagne bottles back to the kitchen sink. Her breast! Sings!
Gareth gets up. He wanders to the bookshelf to look more closely at the boats sailing in a row. He stands, stops, moves, stops. He pulls different glasses from his pocket. Casts an eye over his shoulder to see if Hugh is watching, then if Della is. Léon strolls over, a long s-curve, sinuous beside him, and they talk a moment.
Strange and interesting. Because those boats are really good, in L’s IMHO.
Jason comes from the kitchen, her phone buzzing like a bottled fly in his hand.
12. FIND MY FRIENDS
At the head of the stairs, L motions to Ivy and whispers that she’s leaving—Orion’s on the back porch, won’t come up. “Will you tell my mom, I mean, say I’m sorry I had to leave?”
“Something up?” Ivy asks. Some sixth sense says she ought to ask. Not waiting for the answer, she trots down herself, to talk to Orion.
Nobody there. Black night—midnight already, how did the night go so fast? L emerges from the back door, whistles a winding tune. Orion steps out of the bushes.
“She can help,” L says.
After a moment, he nods. “Savaya’s gone to Toronto. I have to go get her.”
Ivy doesn’t say anything, just looks as open and unjudgemental as she can, waiting for more. He pulls out his phone. She takes it and reads,
> Indo para Toronto
Eu transei con Terry
e eu loitei con Nevaeh
todo é parafuso
She hands it back, eyebrows up.
“Sorry—” he says, sliding a finger on the phone and handing it over again. “Here’s the English side. When she’s got something going on, she Google-translates it into, like, Tagalog or Malaysian and then into Galician, in case her parents read her phone. Then I retranslate.”
Ivy looks down again, forces her eyes to focus on the tiny print.
> I’m going to Toronto
I trance Terry
and I struggled with Nevaeh
everything is messed
“She—tranced Terry?”
“She doesn’t mean trance. That’s why we use Galician.”
Oh dear. “She fought with Nevaeh? Why would that make her go to Toronto?”
“It’s because of something I told her—I have to go get her.” He sounds about ten years old, suddenly.
There’s only a minute to think. This doesn’t seem seriously bad, but can she take the chance? Orion won’t come inside, shouldn’t—Burton’s still up there. Oh, no more questions.
“I’ll get my keys,” she says.
“I can drive,” he says.
“Yeah, I’ve seen your car—let’s take mine,” Ivy says. But really, hers is not much better. Hugh’s van might be the best bet.
Newell
steps out of the doorway, keys in his hand. “Need some wheels?” When he says things like that they sound funny and cool, not old and sad.
Ivy says, “I think we’re okay, we can take the Volvo.”
But there comes Jason with L’s jacket and his own, and Orion’s backpack that he left behind when he jumped. Four, counting Ivy, and then Savaya to bring back—too many.
“I have to go,” Orion says.
“How are you going to find Savaya?” Ivy asks.
“An app—it shows me where her phone is, see?” Orion sticks the phone out, at the end of his long arm, remaining infinitely remote from them. From Newell.
Who says, “I didn’t think she’d be so sensible.”
“She’s not. I installed it while I was taking her Scrabble turn in Social.”
“How does it—” Ivy stops. Doesn’t matter.
Orion explains anyway: “GPS. It’s quite neat to watch, actually. See, she’s in Queen’s Park, in the government buildings.” He says this to Newell, as if it means something, then offers Ivy the screen, looking at it with her. “Look, she’s walking. We have to hurry. I told her a stupid thing, and I’m afraid she might—” He looks at Newell.
Newell looks back at him. “Take the Saab,” he says.
Orion takes the keys from his hand, an odd silent moment. Then the three of them dart off into the darkness. A moment later the car starts, a low-purring, well-heeled engine noise.
“We’d better go too,” Newell tells Ivy. “What can that Volvo of yours do?”
“Well–110, anyway.” Ivy feels a bit defensive. She loves that car.
A voice speaks in the darkness. “Take mine,” it says, a ghost in the shadowy garden. It’s Gerald, sitting alone in the dark on the bench on the gallery porch.
Newell turns to him. “Gerry,” he says, in his kindest, milksoft voice. “You okay, sitting out here? Lonely tonight? Go on upstairs—Hugh’s giving a little party for Della and Ken, he’d love to have you drop in.”
“Looking for Jasper,” Gerald says.
“He’s up there too, he’ll be glad to see you. Ivy and I can take you up.”
“That’s okay.” Gerald stands, heavy on his feet, stooping a little under the porch roof. “Here—” He dangles a set of keys. “Out front. Silver Ghost 9-3, basically a Phoenix. Call it a test drive. Except the way things are with Saab, it won’t ever get into general production.” He tosses the keys.
Newell catches them. “Your house key on here too? We might be late.”
“I’m not going out there,” Gerald says. “Jasper lets me stay at his place.”
They look at him, as well as they can see in the darkness. A shambling beast, a bear of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Then headlights glare in from the parking spot behind the gallery, and Gerald puts an arm up to shield his blinded eyes.
“Look!” A woman’s voice. It’s Ann. “People are still going in, see. It’s fine, I told you it would be.”
Three people get out of the car, and walk over. Ann and a tall man and the painter, Mighton. Ivy has decided she doesn’t like Mighton.
Okay, perfect—a little outing will be even better now.
13. HUGH WILL RESCUE ME?
Hugh’s at the head of the stairs when Ivy runs up. Her pansy eyes big and dark, with a wild look. Whatever she’s up to, she doesn’t want Burton to hear—she lets Hugh know this with a slight shake of the head and a directed flick of the feral eyes.
“Listen,” she says, urgently casual. “I’ve got to run in to town, all of a sudden. Sorry to skip out on the cleanup, but leave the dishes for me. I love doing dishes in the morning.”
“Sure you don’t need help?” He’s thinking of Jamie, the mad boy-man at her apartment.
Again the warning flick to Burton lounging at the table, the good port anchoring Léon and Ken and Jasper, the air thick with legalese and cigar smoke. Too soft for them to hear, she says, “Newell’s going with me. You can’t leave the guests—” She reaches for her coat. “And I know you’ll want to go to your mother again later.” Diffidence in her voice, as always when she speaks of Mimi.
He wishes she could meet Mimi—did they meet? No, that was a dream. Hugh looks at the people scattered around his living room. “Okay, you head out, and I’ll head over. Meet you back here whenever.” Trying for nonchalance. Not understanding how she can leave him.
Her hand clasps his, warm and brief. “I’ll be back. I have to go, right away. Do me a favour, don’t drive to the hospice. And please don’t fall down any more stairs, or climb up any more ladders. Oh, also—Newell’s trying to get Gerald to come up, he’s not in good shape. And sorry, Ann’s here too.”
Hugh’s face stiffens. Ivy reaches up and kisses him, hand lingering on his cheek for a moment. “I’ll text you the whole story,” Ivy whispers, her cheek pressed against his. She pulls back to meet his eyes, with a short beaming grin, and goes.
Okay.
He turns to find Della and Gareth deep in conversation at the bookshelf where her paintings stand. Their bodies form familiar triangles, legs apart, one arm up to point, to remark— Hey, is Gareth stealing Della from him? He laughs, pops three Advil, and heads down the stairs to help poor Gerald.
Still blinded from the upstairs light, Hugh steps out onto the porch, saying, “Come in, come in.” Then steps back, bewildered, as a train of people advance on him. Conrad’s here? And Ann—is this—?
No—Mighton wouldn’t come along to tell him Mimi is dead. It can’t be that.
His heart feeling like it’s been wrung out violently and left spongey, Hugh stands braced in the doorway, looking around for Gerald: there, at the shadowy end of the porch.
“Sorry I’m so late,” Ann says. “Ruth came back and I sat with her a little longer.” She lets out a poignant sigh. “We never know when it’s going to be the last time …”
Hugh growls under his breath.
Conrad says, “No change, no need for alarm.” He puts out a hand, man-style. Hugh still likes Conrad, or at least needs him; he puts his own hand out in response.
“Con was leaving anyway, so he gave me a lift,” Ann says. “Then we saw Mighton on the street and I knew he must be coming to your party too. Where’s Jason?”
A prickle of unease at that—but no, it’s okay, Jason went off with L. Hugh waves Ann and the two men upstairs. Old Mighton. Might have known he’d turn up.
Then he walks along the porch to where Gerald sits stalled against the gallery wall.
“Hey, Gerald,” he says, trying not to use that calm, infantilizing tone the bereaved must get so weary of. “Come on upstairs—we’ve got a quiet shindig going on. There’s cake, if you’re hungry.”
Gerald lifts his large round head. The curly hair that was so buoyantly part of his persona now seems like a wig. “Not hungry much these days.”
No. Hugh tries again. “Jasper’s up there, in case you’re looking for him.”
“Well,” Gerald says. “I was.”
Then there’s a long wait.
“Should I ask him to come down?” Hugh suggests.
Gerald nods. Then stands, abruptly. “No, I’ll come up,” he says. “Be a man.”
The stairs and the landing are full of people, Ann kissing and hugging her way through the throng, her glow intensified by company. She does love a party. Hugh likes her after all, in an antiquated way. She goes to Della, arms out, crying, “Della, Ken! It’s a miracle, you’re still married—what’s your secret. Oh yes! Ken not being an asshole.”
Della turns from where she and Gareth are still talking by the array of boats.
She is not all right, Hugh thinks. Whatever was going on between her and Ken still is, somehow. Whether Ken understands that or not. And what’s got him going now? He’s on his feet, glowering at the end of the long table, hands shoved into his jacket pockets and the hair practically bristling on the back of his neck.
Standing between Della and Ken, Mighton looks from one to the other and laughs, a half-bark t
hat doesn’t quite signal contempt. “Modern life,” he says to the general air. “We run into old flames and their new flames all the time, don’t we?”
“Not me,” Ken says. “I only have one old flame.”
The room is suddenly full of maleness, swelled to fill all the corners. It’s dicey; Hugh is worried. But now Della is at Ken’s side, somehow reaching him without passing through Mighton’s tight little sphere at all.
“I’m your permanent, everlasting, waterproof lighter,” she tells Ken, laughing. Treating him as if he is the way he ought to be: easy, confident, loving, stable. “You’re stuck with me, poor guy.”
Baulked of an emotional scene, Mighton locates Gareth Pindar by the fireplace and lifts an arrogant arm. “Gare!” he calls. “Hey, you’ve got to come downstairs and see my big piece, Dark Gates. Hugh hung it yesterday.”
From the end of the table, where he sits keeping Burton in check, Léon lifts his lazy lean-jawed head to say, “No working tonight, Mr. Mighton.”
That makes Gareth laugh. “A purely social occasion, no opinions offered. Send me a jpeg, I’ll peek at it while I’m in the loo.” He winks at Della and vanishes down the hall.
“At least come to the wine and cheese tomorrow,” Mighton calls after him.
The wine and cheese. Hugh’s done nothing about it, not the first thing. Not a single block of cheese. He looks at Della, soundlessly begging her to tell him that she sent the invitations to their usual email list, but she’s busy rewrapping her mother-of-pearl box. What happened to Gerald? Okay, there at the abandoned table; Jasper’s pouring him a tot of port from the almost empty bottle. Nothing like your thirty-year-old port for disappearing.
Léon stretches and stands, matador slim. Burton rouses himself from the plural pleasures of port and art, and lets Léon go, loosening the vise of his attention with a sated look, as if he’s prised out everything about Gareth, the gallery, and their whole world, and looks around for Newell. Who did not let him know he was leaving.
That will mean a scene. Mighton might enjoy it, but can Hugh handle another scene?
Close to Hugh Page 38
