The Unfortunates

by Laurie Graham

  I said, ‘I’m putting him in a brand new, ocean view apartment, windows floor to ceiling, entrance security, real air conditioning, not just one of those old ceiling fans. What more I can do? Strictly speaking he isn’t even family.’

  They said he had the body of an older man.

  I said to Emerald, ‘I’ll never understand why. He’s never done much to wear it out.’

  ‘Would he come to us do you think?’ she said. ‘We have room. Let me talk to him.’

  But Murray wouldn’t hear of leaving Florida. I took him to see the apartment and he shuffled around on his stick, looking for a latch to open the window, complaining about the smell of the rug.

  I said, ‘I’ve arranged for a help, to keep you clean and tidy and bring in food.’

  ‘What kind of food?’ he said.

  I believe he’d have turned it all down if it hadn’t been for the terrace.

  ‘I could have a lemon tree up here,’ he said. ‘And hibiscus.’

  Emerald said, ‘I shall still worry about him.’

  I said, ‘Well, don’t. A creaking door hangs long.’

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  Alan was a cute kid. Being around him sometimes made me wish I’d had a boy myself. I believe I’d have taken better to a boy. Maxine was OK. She was never going to win any beauty contests, having inherited the oriental features of the Boons, but she was a southpaw, like me, and she loved to sew. She was full of divine ideas for originations for her dolls.

  Em always said, ‘I can’t help you Maxine. I never saw anyone so awkward looking with a pair of scissors. You’ll have to ask Grandma Poppy.’

  I always warmed to another southpaw. The way people squawked and mocked us you’d have thought we sewed with our feet.

  A few months before Alan was bar mitzvahed he had his adenoids fixed and then they all went to Florida for his recuperation.

  ‘Uncle Murray has a parrot,’ Maxine told me. ‘Her name’s Grizel and she can say nearly a whole beruka. She poops everywhere.’

  I said, ‘Emerald, is he becoming a health hazard?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘He cleans up. He’s all right. He uses a separate cloth.’

  I said, ‘And is he making the big trek north? Is he coming to the party?’

  ‘How many times do I have to tell you?’ she said. ‘It’s not a party. Alan’s being called to the Torah.’

  As far as I’m concerned a seated rib roast for forty and a cake with a marzipan tallit amount to a party.

  I said, ‘Whatever. Is your Uncle Murray coming?’

  Sometimes I missed the old nuisance.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s too far. His leg pains him where they pinned the bone.’

  I said, ‘Did he give you a check for the boy? How much did he give you?’

  ‘Mom!’ she said. ‘He’s having trees planted for Alan. In Israel. Isn’t that nice?’

  Trees for Israel. Parrots pooping on the rug. There was a crazy streak in those Jacoby boys, and in their father, too. Judah may have looked like a rock, but he did foolish things. Gave away his money. Married Ma.

  I instructed Sapphire and Honey not to be cheap with their bar-mitzvah gifts.

  I said, ‘Those Boons give Timex wristwatches and to hear them talk you’d think they bought out Tiffany’s. You’ll see what I mean.’

  For once Sapphy listened to me. She bought Alan a good camera, which is how he started on the path to fame and fortune. Honey gave him a stamp collector’s album, but she never did pay attention to a word I said. Sherman and Vera gave a book on first aid, proving that the Boons weren’t the only ones who were cheap and the Jacobys weren’t the only ones who were crazy.

  Sherman always asked if Alan had joined the Boy Scouts and he always got the same answer. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘You should join,’ he said to Alan. ‘Every boy should learn to take care of himself. Every boy should know how to mend his own pants and be a good American.’

  Vera had a prior engagement that Saturday.

  ‘It’s a symposium,’ I heard Sherman telling Honey. ‘On the oppression of women.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ she said.

  Oh dear, indeed.

  The approach to the Williamsburg Bridge was so backed up, Alan Mordecai had already started his chanting by the time we reached Union Temple. I don’t know what he was chanting about, but he sounded word perfect to me, and he hardly missed a beat when he saw me wheeling his new bicycle up to the front.

  Mortie stared at me and then commenced burying his head in his hands. Em made a big frowning face, gesturing to me to take the bike away.

  I said, ‘Leave it outside? In this neighborhood? Are you nuts?’

  Then I took out Grandpa Minkel’s little silk cap and handed it up to Alan.

  I said, ‘Put it on.’

  He shot a look across to his father, checking it was all right to change hats halfway through, but Mortie was still studying the floor.

  I said, ‘This was your great-great-grandpa’s, on the Minkel side. And now it’s yours.’

  Em nodded at him. Gave him the go-ahead. I left the bike propped up near the bimah. I wasn’t going to wheel it away again and make an exhibition of myself.

  As it was I could hear a good deal of gasping and tsking.

  Sherman whispered, ‘I guess it’s the first time they saw a bike in here.’

  The first time any of those Boons had seen an eight-speed Schwinn with chrome fenders, that’s for sure.

  ‘Aunt Poppy,’ Sherman said, ‘I hope you got a free puncture repair kit with that?’

  ‘Mom,’ Emerald said to me, while everyone was scrumming for the cold hors d’oeuvres, ‘the only thing saved you from death was that old kippah. Mortie was ready to murder you, I swear, temple or no.’

  Alan wanted to know how many Minkels had worn it.

  I said, ‘How should I know? What about the bike? Do you like it?’

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ he said. He always was a polite boy. His voice was just on the turn, too. He was shooting up and filling out, turning into a real young man. He wanted to know where my Grandpa Minkel came from.

  I said, ‘I don’t know. Did you see it has a real shift stick?’

  ‘Germany,’ Honey said. ‘The Minkels came from Germany.’ She was on her second plate of herring, like she hadn’t eaten in a year.

  ‘Same as the Boons,’ he said. ‘So we’re German all round.’

  I said, ‘Oh no you’re not. You’re one quarter Merrick and don’t you ever forget it. Your Great-Uncle Neville is an English Sir. Your Great-Grandma Jacoby met the Queen of England.’

  ‘And first and foremost,’ Sherman chipped in, ‘you’re American. It doesn’t get any better than that.’

  Maxine had just learned how to whistle in wonderment.

  ‘Wow!’ she said. ‘I always knew we were pretty fancy.’

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  There was a new gallery opening every minute. You’d blink and there was another one. You’d blink again and there was a good chance it’d be gone. I was the big name. I’d thrown down the marker and set the standard when half of those newcomers were still in diapers. Sapphire’s place did OK, too. She opened late and closed early and, of course, photographers are never difficult. I found her openings rather dull and always made sure I had some other event to rush away to.

  Emerald never understood how exciting and entertaining my life was.

  ‘Mom,’ she’d say, ‘don’t you ever get tired of people blowing smoke in your eyes? Don’t you ever get tired of listening to phoneys?’

  When a person lives in a rut they may not even realize it, and Emerald and Mortie ran in a very deep rut indeed. Mondays they helped with Temple Youth, Tuesdays Em had Temple Sisterhood. Wednesdays she visited Honey and sometimes Sapphire, depending on Sapphire’s mood, and sometimes me, depending on my schedule. Thursdays she took Maxine horse riding at Jamaica Bay and Mortie had Men’s Club. Fridays she played house all day, Saturdays they visited with the Boons, Sundays the B
oons visited with them. Vacations they mainly went to a small house they had bought in the Catskills. I would have shot myself.

  One day she said to me, ‘You know you’re going to be seventy …’

  I said, ‘I’d like to know who’s spreading a filthy lie like that.’

  She said, ‘We’d like to do something to mark it.’

  There appeared before me a horrible vision of a catered buffet. There wouldn’t be enough liquor and none of my amusing artists would turn out to Eastern Parkway and the Boons would all be there because Emerald couldn’t open a cookie jar without them attending.

  I said, ‘No thank you.’

  ‘Why don’t you wait,’ she said, ‘till I’ve told you what we thought? We’re going to England. I want to show Mortie and the kids where I did my growing up.’

  Angelica wrote that we were all welcome to stay at Stoke Glapthorne.

  ‘We’re quite cosy “en famille”,’ she wrote.

  During the summer we do cream teas and tractor rides so Edgar and I just hunker down in the West Wing as far away as poss from the rubbernecks. We have ourselves roped off but occasionally one finds oneself being gazed at by a tripper who’s jumped the fence.

  We’re no great distance from Bagehots but you’ll find the old place very much altered. Kneilthorpe is gone. They built something called a housing estate. Em, I do hope you won’t be terribly disappointed. There are still a few of our old rides you may remember, and Merrick is still with us. He’s writing a memoir of his time in Mesopotamia but is otherwise rather forgetful. He’s very keen to buy something called a ‘mobile home’. It’s a kind of van with a bed and a potty and no wheels. He visualizes it installed alongside the summer kitchen and I suppose it would be rather fun to have one’s own little billet, but Edgar won’t hear of it. The rubbernecks would be sure to discover it and then one would have inspectors inspecting. Everything is inspected these days. The town hall is full of little Hitlers. One sometimes wonders why we bothered going to war.

  Now I have a nice little chestnut Maxine can ride whilst you’re here, but what about the boy? Edgar has a grey he might try out but she is inclined to take advantage of inexperience so we may have to find him something a little steadier. Are you absolutely sure you can’t stay on for some cubbing?

  I said to Emerald, ‘What about Paris? You grew up there, too.’

  ‘I don’t want to go back to Paris,’ she said. ‘I was always waiting for something bad to happen there. You go if you want.’

  So it was arranged that after Leicestershire I would take Alan and Maxine to Paris while Mortie and Em motored around scenic England.

  ‘But only if you’re up to it,’ Em kept saying. ‘Kids can be a handful.’

  I was up to anything. I still am.

  Before we flew to London I kept my annual appointment with Dr Newton and he tidied me up a little around the neck and eyelids.

  I said to Em, ‘Why don’t you let me take Maxine with me this time?’

  My granddaughter had a very racial nose.

  Emerald said, ‘She’s twelve years old.’

  I said, ‘She has a deviated septum.’

  I never did get my way over that. But Dr Newton made me look fabulous and refreshed, as usual, and I had my styliste give me a soft blush tint.

  Honey said, ‘Ma always told me I was the pretty one, but you’re the pretty one now. I wouldn’t be surprised if you don’t come back with another English beau. And don’t worry about Sapphy. While you’re gone I’m going to plead loneliness and have her eat dinner with me twice a week at least.’

  Sapphire was going through one of her episodes.

  Air travel was not what it used to be. One couldn’t circulate. All kinds of dreary people were crammed in together. And I had to tell the stewardess several times that I was a former aviatrix myself and the pilot would certainly wish to meet me, before she invited me forward to the cockpit.

  I said to Mortie, ‘We should have sailed.’

  ‘Who has that kind of time?’ he said. Mortie was always in a hurry. If he was at home he needed to run to the factory for an hour. If he was at the factory he was trying to get away and eat dinner with his wife.

  I believe it took us longer to drive from London Airport to the Boodle-Nearys than it did to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Emerald would drive and Mortie would keep grabbing the wheel and yelling, ‘Watch out!’ and I was altogether nauseated by the twisting and turning of those English roads.

  As we approached the house we spotted a figure, bent over, weeding in a most inelegant posture. It was Angelica. Em began banging on the horn, and by the time we pulled up our vehicle was entirely surrounded by excited hounds, smearing the windows with their snouts and sliding down the bodywork with their big muddy claws.

  Mortie said, ‘There goes my insurance deductible. Holy smoke. Em, I have to take an antihistamine before I open this door.’

  I needn’t have worried about comparing unfavorably with Angelica. Even after flying in an airborne slum and being flung from side to side in a tinny British station wagon, I still could have given her ten years at least. Her cheeks had that dull redness of broken veins, her permanent wave had all but grown out, and her considerable bosom had moved south.

  ‘Oh, how marvelous to see you!’ she cried. ‘How simply marvelous! Edgar will be out drectly. He’s in the Smoke Rum reminding Merrick who you are.’

  Stoke Glapthorne was a wide, shallow, gray stone house. It had terraced lawns and yew hedges and portraits of Boodles or Nearys who had been there since 1682. Had Ma ever seen it she would have found even more reason to feel discontented with Kneilthorpe.

  Angelica had four gardeners and an under-gardener, two persons serving tea and cake in the old dairy, a manager, a seller of entrance tickets and souvenir brochures, and an elderly woman who cycled up twice a week to dust, but no one to carry in our luggage.

  ‘Edgar!’ she roared. ‘The Americans have landed. All hands to the pump.’

  Edgar Boodle-Neary had been present at Angelica and Murray’s wedding but I had no clear memory of him. He had just been one of that set of colorless, shapeless young men, given to neighing helplessly at the most unamusing things and clinging to each other for company. I don’t believe they were intentionally unfriendly. But they all seemed to have known each other every minute of their lives and couldn’t conceive of how to converse with anyone from another land, let alone a person who hadn’t attended their school. Reggie had been the only one among them to be a friend to Murray and not disregard him just because he chose not to hunt or shoot.

  The years and perhaps the influence of Angelica had improved Edgar’s sociability, if not his physique. He had turned into a sphere, though how this had happened still perplexes me. Food was a minor concern at Stoke Glapthorne and while we were guests there I was often reduced to going into the Tea Rums, after the day trippers had left, and taking some of the small, dry muffins.

  I can only think that Edgar had another feeding station, perhaps in London where he belonged to a great number of clubs and was sometimes obliged to go to a place called The Hyce in order to register his vote. He apparently had a very important role in the passing of laws, though I never saw him engaged in it. Somehow, in spite of short rations at home, he was able to maintain an enormous waistline and very good spirits.

  He greeted us all warmly on our arrival and assisted Alan and Mortie in bringing up our bags while Angelica made soup from a yellow powder.

  ‘One of the great benefits of going into tourism,’ she said, ‘is that one can get a special card and buy in bulk. It’s extraordinarily cheap and one only needs to shop once a month. You must come with me whilst you’re here. There might be something you’d care to take back with you. This coffee frinstance. You simply add hot water, and this canister has lasted us months. How adorable Emerald is, and her little family. Quite adorable.’

  Gelica never once commented on my youthful appearance. She petted Emerald incessantly and Mortie and Alan
and Maxine, but beyond that her mind was filled with horses and discount cards. Edgar did whisper to me one evening, ‘Still got a good pair of pins on you’, but I believe I may have paid in advance for the compliment with the very fine single malt that had been my gift to him, and, anyhow, his persistently calling me ‘Polly’ diluted the satisfaction.

  As for Sir Neville, he rarely left his writing desk and when he did he seemed not to notice there were five extra people in the house.

  ‘Merrick!’ Angelica goaded him. ‘You remember Poppy. Reggie’s bride?’

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘Of course he does,’ she said, as though he weren’t there. ‘He pretends, so as not to have to talk. He even pretends not to remember Bobbity, and then he scribbles orf reams and reams. He recalls the name of every man who was in his regiment.’

  The only time Sir Neville voluntarily broke his silence was to laugh, suddenly and heartily, at some secret regimental joke I suppose.

  We drove in convoy across to the old places, Edgar with Mortie and Em, Alan and Maxine with me and Angelica. Past Bagehots first, with its smart new gates.

  ‘Wrecked cars,’ Angelica told me. ‘Those people have made millions of pounds out of wrecked cars. Extraordinary.’

  Then onto Buckby, to the churchyard, where poor Reggie’s grave stood neglected, and two places along lay my sister-in-law, Marigold Alice Bagehot Merrick, parted in death from her hunter.

  ‘Not only would the parson not allow Fearless to be interred here,’ Angelica explained, ‘neither would he permit “Bobbity” on the inscription. I said to him, “Who’s paying for the bloody hole to be dug? Who’s paying for the inscription?” But he’s one of this new breed. They come from secondary modern schools and they don’t at all understand country ways. Poppy! Here I am chatting on. Perhaps you’d like to be alone for a moment? With Reggie?’

  But I didn’t need to be alone. I had Reggie in my heart, and this was Emerald’s moment. She had brought flowers to lay on her father’s grave.

  ‘Daddy,’ I heard her say, ‘I brought Mortie to see you. I wish you could have known him. And Alan and Maxine. I wish you could have known them all. It doesn’t seem fair.’