Lying with the Dead

by Michael Mewshaw

  “What do you expect? You live thousands of miles away.”

  The dove suddenly resumes banging its head into the door—an all too blatant symbol for my conversation with Candy. “If memory serves—correct me if I’m wrong—it doesn’t make any difference whether I’m here or in Maryland. Mom won’t listen to me. She won’t even let me see her. Last time, I had to talk to her through the mail slot.”

  “She doesn’t have a mail slot.”

  “Excuse me. That changes everything. I spoke to her through a door. That makes me feel so much better.”

  “Why take it personally?”

  “I am a person. How am I supposed to take it?”

  “She’s upset about the way she looks.”

  “I’m not completely in love with how I look either.”

  “You’d pity her if you saw her. Sometimes I hear her praying, ‘Don’t take me yet, Lord. Don’t take me yet.’ She’s guilt-ridden and desperate for forgiveness before she dies.”

  “Call a priest and have her go to confession.”

  “She wants your forgiveness.”

  “Assure her that she has it, full and unqualified.”

  “She’d rather hear it from you.”

  I flick my free hand to distract the dove from its kamikaze attack on the glass.

  “She wants to apologize to you in person,” Candy says.

  “Look, she doesn’t owe me an apology. Staying away all these years, she did me a favor. I’ve made peace with the idea that she spared me. That’s her best gift—her absence.”

  “How convenient for you.” Candy’s voice heats up. “What’s her gift to me? I have to deal with her every damn day.”

  “I sympathize. I honestly do.”

  “First thing in the morning, I phone to make sure she’s still alive, that she hasn’t fallen down the stairs during the night and broken her neck. That’s every day, not twice a month.”

  “Are you suggesting I call every day? For what? Sometimes she doesn’t bother answering. I know she’s there. Where else would she be? I let it ring and ring. I redial, to make sure I have the right code. I don’t mean her area code. I mean that asinine business of ringing her number once, hanging up, and dialing again. It’s like trying to get through to the CIA.”

  “She complains she gets crank calls, obscene calls, heavy breathers. She doesn’t like to answer unless she’s sure it’s one of us.”

  “Even when she does answer,” I say, “it’s the same story. In winter she’s too cold. In summer she’s too hot. If it’s spring or fall, she hates the change of season.”

  “Think how many times I’ve had to listen to that.”

  “Look, Candy, I’d love to help.” As the dove continues to knock itself silly against the glass, a migraine tightens a band from the base of my skull to the crown of my head. “My advice is for you to start taking care of yourself.”

  “And who’ll take care of Mom?”

  “Maybe if you weren’t at her beck and call, she’d go into assisted living.”

  “She’ll never do that.”

  “Fine. I’ll hire her a live-in nurse.”

  “She’ll never do that either. That’s always your solution, isn’t it? Write a check. The easy way out.”

  “If it’s so goddamn easy, why doesn’t somebody else pay her bills?”

  “I’ll do it if you’ll clean out her earwax, clip her toenails, and wash her pissy sheets. Do we have a deal?”

  “Somebody’s at the door.” I drop the phone, scurry to the terrace, and scare the bird away, screaming. The neighbors no doubt think I’m nuts.

  When I’m back on the line, Candy asks, “What was that?”

  I don’t waste time explaining. Candy’s and my worst arguments have always been over how to defend Mom against her poor choices, how to perk up her spirits, how to steer clear when she was on a tear. Things haven’t changed one iota. The more we obsess about her well-being, the more Mom ignores us.

  I try to sound calm. Imperturbable. “Appropriately individuated,” as Dr. Rokoko puts it. “It’s not that I don’t want to be supportive,” I tell Candy. “It’s just that I’ve detached. In a healthy sense of the word.”

  “Must be wonderful to have that luxury.”

  “You need to detach and live your own life and let her live hers.”

  “She doesn’t have a life. She’s dying.”

  “A minute ago,” I remind her, “you said there’s no predicting how long she’ll last.”

  “She asked me to say she’d like to see you one last time. She wants to see Maury too. I guess that means sending him travel money.”

  “This is sort of sudden.”

  “How many times do I have to repeat it? She wants to see you.”

  “Why?”

  “She wants your forgiveness.”

  “It’s not my place to forgive her. I’m not God. I don’t judge people.”

  Candy’s laughter crackles on the line. “Of course you do. If you weren’t an actor, you’d have made a hell of a critic. You know all the rules. Now it’s time to learn a little compassion.”

  “I can’t possibly leave London this winter.”

  “Tell her yourself. I’m tired of being your messenger. She’s counting on a call from you today. If you don’t care about her last wishes—”

  “It’s not a question of not caring.”

  “Blame it on your busy schedule. But wait a few hours before you phone her. She’s like you. She sleeps late and wakes up in a nasty mood.”

  Candy slams down the receiver.

  I go for a walk to clear my head. But the descent of Holly Mount, past St. Mary’s Catholic Church, then past the cemetery of St. John’s Anglican Church, clarifies nothing. Though it’s not raining, the wind whips a dripping mist from the cedar trees. Pitted with decay and furred over with moss, the toothy headstones are wired together by dead blackberry vines, like a display of the appalling state of British dentistry.

  It’s never dawned on me before that I might end up buried here. I don’t relish the thought of being buried anywhere. But I do wonder about my father and why I’ve never visited his grave. That’s the least of it, I suppose—the least of the things I’ve never done that pertain to him. Mom discouraged questions, Candy choked up whenever I asked about Dad, and with Maury silence on the subject seemed a matter of simple kindness.

  From Church Row I spot Kay Kendall’s tomb. A film addict and faithful reader of screen magazines, Mom would love the landmark. During our strained telephone chats, actors and actresses are a favorite topic. As we gossip about celebrities who live near me in NW3—Emma Thompson, David Soul, Kenneth Branagh, Helena Bonham Carter—she shows a surer grasp of their personal affairs than she does of mine. And in every reference to my career, she can’t resist sticking in the knife and twisting.

  “I’m praying you’ll land a starring role,” she invariably says, “in the next Steven Spielberg movie.”

  “I’m a character actor,” I remind her again. “Not a star. I’ll never be bankable in the States.”

  “You just need a good script and a hardworking agent. Before I die, I want you to win an Academy Award or an Emmy. I want to watch you on TV in your tux thanking everybody who made your success possible. I want to be mentioned by name.”

  “Sorry, Mom. That’s not going to happen.”

  “Pray and you shall receive.”

  “Pray for something worthwhile,” I say. “Pray for yourself.”

  “Praying for you, I am praying for myself.”

  “Well, while you’re at it, why not pray that Maury gets promoted to CEO of a Fortune 500 corporation.”

  But she’s relentless, remorseless. Why does Candy imagine that I can persuade Mom of anything, let alone that she’s forgiven? I’m not as dumb as that dove. I know when to quit beating my head against a door.

  Through air as gray and cold as a gun barrel, I head up Flask Walk toward the Heath. Despite the weather, men drink outside the pub while women�
�their wives?—look on in disdain. For a few blocks I break into a jog. I used to subscribe to the consoling illusion that each hour of exercise adds a day to the tag end of your life. Now I’d settle for peace in the present moment. But thoughts of Mom dog my steps. That she’s anxious for my absolution needles me like the north wind. You don’t have to be a character in a Greek tragedy to fear you’re killing your mother by freezing your heart, forgetting the good, and festering over the bad. What kind of man ignores a final request?

  The kind, it comes to me in self-defense, who has tasted the back of her hand, but kept on paying the bills. Mal, my wiseacre agent, says, “Whenever anybody claims it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.” But despite Candy’s crack that I try to solve every problem with a check, it really isn’t about the money.

  Crossing the zebra on East Heath Road, I follow the footpath to the Mixed Bathing Pond. In a nod to political correctness, two further ponds welcome gays and lesbians. During this season, only swans and mallards float like shooting gallery targets on the tea-colored water. Bundled in anoraks, fishermen hug the shore, icons of stoic agony, religiously committed to a ceremony that looks about as availing as a rain dance. By suffering man learns. But what do they gain by plumbing these shallows? I’ve never seen them reel in so much as a minnow.

  The hike up Parliament Hill sets my heart drumming and my head spinning. I decide I’ll spring for Maury’s plane ticket to Maryland. I can’t make up my mind about myself. With the tense wait for the BBC contract, the sessions with Dr. Rokoko, the deadline for my memoir, and now Tamzin to consider—this is a bad time for a trip to the States.

  The bald summit of Parliament Hill usually attracts kite flyers. But today’s wind would rip a kite to ribbons. Rifling inside my Barbour coat, it inflates me like the Michelin Man and threatens to float me over the whorled grasses to Highgate. To steady myself I latch onto a wooden bench and gaze out at London where rooftop antennas and satellite dishes describe an oriental script against the curdled sky.

  At the foot of the hill on a rugby pitch, a solitary figure—man or boy, I can’t judge at this distance—practices kicking up-and-unders. Punting the ball high into the air, he chases and catches it on the fly, a prodigious achievement that I, in my fashion, attempt to imitate. Memories of childhood sail end over end through my turbulent brain, and I try to gather them in before they go to ground.

  Mom refused to understand how scared I was to visit Maury at Patuxent. As a kid, I complained every Sunday how terrified I was of the other cons, their hard-faced wives and girlfriends. The monosyllabic guards who frisked us coming and going didn’t make me feel safer. To the contrary, I was afraid they’d slap me into prison, too, in a cell beside Maury.

  Mom swore she’d never let them lock me away. But if she had that power, why was Maury behind bars? And why, after his parole, couldn’t she keep the cops from arresting him on bogus charges every time there was a crime anywhere in the county?

  When they first sprung Maury from Patuxent, I was happy for him. At school, though, my classmates taunted me about my jailbird brother and I started to feel that some taint from him attached to me. It didn’t help that Mom told me to ignore them. Just as Candy believed that everybody was staring at her leg, I thought people eyed me with suspicion and distaste.

  Then one day in the ninth grade I was cramming for a science quiz when a man barged into the study hall. He wore a denim shirt and jeans spackled with concrete. I took him for someone on the maintenance staff. But he looked me over and barked, “My car’s out back. Let’s go.”

  “Where? What for?”

  “You’ll find out.”

  “I’m not allowed to leave the building during school hours.”

  “Aren’t you the scholar.” He grabbed me by the shirt collar and muscled me into the hallway. Students and teachers gawked, but said nothing. When I hesitated, not knowing whether to shout for help or go along quietly, he slammed me against a locker. “Do I have to handcuff you?”

  “Who are you? What did I do?”

  He flipped open his wallet, flashing a police badge. Then he frog-marched me outside to a squad car. “Climb in.”

  “Have you talked to the principal? Do I have permission to leave?”

  “Just get in.”

  He made me sit in the backseat, caged by steel mesh. My instant reaction was that Maury had been arrested again. “Does this have to do with my brother?”

  “I’ll ask the questions. You keep your trap shut.”

  We sped down U.S. 1, past body and fender shops and bail bondsmen’s offices, to the County Service Building, a mock colonial bunker that brooded behind wooden pillars. To be driven to the same police station where, I knew from family lore, Maury had been booked for Dad’s murder was the realization of a nightmare. Now you’ve done it, I remember thinking. You’re going to jail. Against all reason, I was sure I had to be guilty of something.

  The man hauled me into a squad room. In that stark gray space fizzing with neon light, a teenage girl in a torn blouse sat thumbing through mug shots.

  “Is this the guy?” the cop asked her.

  She glanced up, her face partially veiled by straight blond hair.

  “You said dark hair, about six feet tall, green shirt,” the cop prompted her.

  “Is she accusing me of something? I’ve never seen her before.”

  “Shut up and let her look at you.”

  Her blue eyes sized me up more bluntly than any girl’s ever had. She had cute birdlike features and a mole, like a beauty mark, on her cheek. We were about the same age, and she seemed every bit as scared as I was. It astounded me that she was scared of me or of the person she mistook me for. Even after she murmured, “It’s not him,” I had the sense that she might have said that only out of fear.

  “He fits the description,” the cop insisted.

  “It was a man in his twenties,” she whispered.

  “I’m only fifteen,” I said.

  “I want any shit from you, I’ll squeeze your head.”

  He hauled me down the corridor to a different room. “Watch this smartass while I talk to a witness.”

  A uniformed policeman stood guard beside an immense naked man who lay handcuffed to a table. Crosshatched with cuts and scratches, the man displayed no more animation than a hassock that had split a seam. Maybe he was in shock or sedated. He didn’t let out a whimper as a paramedic swathed him with alcohol.

  “A fucking mess, ain’t he?” the policeman said. “He robbed the wrong guys at a pool hall, and they tossed him through a plate glass window. He didn’t have so much lard on him, he’d probably be dead.”

  The cop in the spattered jeans came and led me back to the girl. “Take a second look,” he said. “Take as long as you need. Age aside, could it be him?”

  “No. He’s not the one. I’m positive.”

  “Okey-dokey. Sit tight while I drop Mister Blabbermouth back at school.”

  As we left the County Service Building, a man called out, “How’s it hanging, Gil?”

  “Like a hammer.”

  In the squad car, he didn’t apologize, but he let me sit up front and explained about the girl. “A guy jumped her and grabbed her tits. She broke away before he did worse.”

  “And you blamed me?” In four short years I had gone from having a man’s hand down my pants to being suspected of sexual assault. How could I not feel tainted?

  “You fit the description.”

  “She told you it was a man in his twenties. Why search in a school?”

  “A hunch. No harm done.”

  “Not to you. What am I supposed to tell my teacher?”

  “Tell him you talk too damn much.” He leaned over and flung open the door on my side.

  Normally I wouldn’t have confided in a soul, no more than I had confessed to anybody before Dr. Rokoko about the creep in the woods. Ashamed and angry, I wanted to punish the cop—and at the same time I was afraid of being punished. If Mom found out, sh
e was sure to flare up as quick as a kitchen match, not caring who got burned. Still, people had seen me dragged out of school and driven off in a squad car. I couldn’t hide what had happened.

  My science teacher sent me to the office. There the principal listened to my story, then despite my abject begging that he not tell Mom, he said he had no choice. He phoned her straightaway, and I resigned myself to being beaten.

  That evening at home, however, she caught me by surprise and was furious at the police, not at me. Next day she called in sick at Safeway and made me come with her to the County Service Building, fuming the whole time about false arrest.

  Mother Courage. That was another role she gloried in. Whenever she wasn’t playing Mother Discourage or Medea or Blanche Dubois, she was a defender of underdogs, a pugnacious righter of wrongs, a fearless protector of her family. That these campaigns frequently ended in losing battles didn’t deter Mom. All that mattered at the moment was settling a score.

  With her silver hair helmeted in a page-boy style, she marched off to war in a pair of pedal pushers and a man’s shirt hanging loose at her hips. Yet no pinstriped state’s attorney or swaggering sleek-suited defense lawyer commanded quicker attention. She demanded to speak to the chief of police and promptly got her wish.

  A florid fellow, short-armed and thick-necked, the chief wore a starched white shirt that creaked like a bulletproof vest. In bemusement, he listened to Mom lay out her bill of charges, then inquired mildly, “Did your son notice the name and badge number of the alleged officer in this alleged incident?”

  “Gil,” I said. “His name was Gil. I saw his badge but not the number.”

  The chief lazily swung his eyes over to me. “What’s Gil’s last name?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Can you describe him?”

  “He’s heavy-set and wore work clothes. You know, blue jeans.”

  “Well, that gives us something to go on. We have an officer named Gil.” He instructed his secretary to call Officer Conroy.

  Then the three of us waited in awkward silence. Awkward for me, that is. It’s hard to remember what I feared more. That the chief would humiliate Mom, and then she’d take it out on me? Or that somehow they’d both turn against me?