The Unfortunates

by Laurie Graham

  I hadn’t planned on doing any weeping, but when you hear your child making introductions to a cracked headstone it’s impossible to resist. I held her in my arms.

  ‘Mom,’ she said.

  ‘Em,’ I said.

  Even the kids had ceased goofing around.

  ‘Kleenex anyone?’ Angelica asked.

  As we left, Em plucked off one of the flowers she’d brought for Reggie and left it on Bobbity’s grave.

  Somehow, seeing what had become of Kneilthorpe was the worst. The old house and its gardens were gone, and in their place was something called The Thorpes. Little houses as far as the eye could see, with carports and patches of lawn and women in synthetics pushing bassinets. There was a Kneilthorpe Drive and a Merrick Avenue and a Batey Parade with a post office and food store and a hair salon.

  I said, ‘Who was Batey?’

  Edgar said, ‘Need you ask? The dreadful individual who built all this.’

  I said, ‘I wish Merrick had asked for my help. I’d have sent money.’

  Angelica shook her head. ‘Poppy,’ she said, ‘you have no idea. It would have taken a fortune.’

  I said, ‘I have a fortune. And I’d have liked to keep the place going, for Emerald and future generations.’

  ‘One of these days,’ I heard Mortie say to Edgar, ‘she’s going to dip into the well and the bucket’s going to come up empty.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t have wanted it,’ Em said. ‘I have a home. Uncle Neville got some money and the land got used. Those people got to live in nice new houses. There’s nothing wrong with that.’

  I said, ‘This land was your heritage. Now look at it. A heap for the ants. No wonder Neville is a broken man.’

  We looked in on Melton Mowbray, too, all quite ruined with self-service stores. You even had to pump your own gas.

  I said, ‘Gelica, tell me to mind my own business, but is your place liable to be sold for an ant heap, too?’

  ‘We’ve taken advice,’ she said. ‘And if we expand the day-tripper side of things. Perhaps an aviary, or an orchid house, or a shop selling fudge. But then, one has to be flexible. We did receive an offer. Someone had the idea of turning the place into a sort of hotel. Health and beauty. Turkish baths and salad for dinner. Apparently there’s money to be made doing that. But Edgar says “over my dead bod!” So we’ll probably go for the fudge.’

  I said, ‘You and Edgar seem like a match.’

  ‘He’s a very agreeable sort,’ she said. ‘And, of course, I completely depend on him for dealing with Merrick.’

  I said, ‘Strange how we both ended up with another family’s problems. You really had no obligation to take on Neville, any more than I did to …’

  I hadn’t raised the other business, but it seemed like the moment.

  I said, ‘Murray’s in Florida, you know? He sends his best wishes.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘Florida. Grapefruit segments.’

  I said, ‘He never did marry. And now he has a pin in his thigh and he doesn’t much care for company. I shouldn’t complain, I guess. All I have to do is pay his rent.’

  ‘Do you really?’ she said. ‘Is he bankers?’

  I said, ‘No. Just … eccentric.’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘bankers. Is he bankrupt?’

  I said, ‘Well, his father never made wise investments. Apart from marrying Ma. And anyway he gave money away like there was no tomorrow. That was his mentality. Give till it hurts. So there’s nothing left. It doesn’t seem to bother Murray, though. He just potters around in his own little world.’

  Angelica said, ‘I’m glad you’re taking care of things. I should hate to think of him being alone. I was awfully fond of him. Awfully. Susie Manners ran across him, you know? Flicky’s sister? Nineteen forty-seven, I think. It was certainly after I’d had us annulled. He turned up in a Displaced Person camp in Epping Forest, searching for a friend. Susie was with the Red Cross.’

  I said, ‘What friend?’

  ‘No idea,’ she said.

  I said, ‘Gelica, do you think Murray is that way? Was it that kind of friend?’

  I heard a little snigger from my grandson in the rear seat.

  ‘Possibly,’ she said.

  I said, ‘Well, let’s call up Susie and ask her.’

  ‘Can’t be done,’ she said. ‘She married a South African. Durban, I think. Drowned swimming after a heavy luncheon. Sorry.’

  I felt so frustrated.

  I said, ‘Didn’t you think to ask? I would have.’

  ‘Poppy,’ she said. ‘One moves on. You did. Even Merrick did. One can’t sit around in the doldrums, wondering what might have been.’

  I said, ‘If that’s what you call moving on. I can’t believe he didn’t fight harder to keep Kneilthorpe. All that land, gone for hovels. Little boxes for unfortunates.’

  Maxine said, ‘Grandma? What is an unfortunate?’

  Alan said, ‘You are, sap head.’

  He loved to torment her.

  ‘An unfortunate,’ I said, ‘is a person who doesn’t come from a good family.’

  Maxine said, ‘You mean the kind that dump their grands in hospitals when they get old and never visit them?’

  Alan said, ‘She doesn’t mean that kind of “good”. Good families are where the kids go to college and nobody gets into trouble.’

  I said, ‘No. Unfortunates are people who have nothing. They live in tiny rooms and all share one bed and have fleas. And they can never go to Sardi’s for a filet mignon or anything like that because they have absolutely no money.’

  ‘Absolutely none?’ Maxine said.

  ‘Absolutely none,’ I said. ‘They have to wear rags and eat dry crusts and mop their own floors because they can’t afford help.’

  ‘Those people weren’t wearing rags,’ she said. ‘They were wearing nice things.’

  Angelica said, ‘Well, in England a good family is a family you can place. Because your people have known their people forever.’

  Alan said, ‘But what if they’ve done bad things?’

  She said, ‘Frinstance?’

  ‘If your parents knew their parents and everything,’ he said, ‘but one of them murdered somebody or cheated.’

  ‘Ah!’ she said. ‘Like the Vigos. Well, they’re still a good family. Archie turned out a bad lot, but they’re a very good family. George is eighth baronet, and his mother was a Conyngham. Do you see?’

  Neither Alan nor Maxine did see, besides which they were all overlooking my point that the sign of an unfortunate was that he had nothing.

  Maxine said, ‘Angelica, I’m going to be bat mitzvahed next year.’

  ‘Are you darling?’ Angelica said. ‘What fun.’

  The modern way Emerald had raised her children, they expected to have their opinions listened to, and Maxine was like a dog with a bone on the subject of The Thorpes.

  ‘Grandma says those people have fleas,’ she harped on at dinner, ‘but they looked OK to me. I liked those little houses.’

  I said, ‘You wouldn’t say so if you had to live in one of them.’

  ‘Did you ever live in one, Grandma?’ she said. And everyone waited on my reply though they were all perfectly well acquainted with the story of my life.

  I said, ‘I don’t have to have lived in one. I visited enough of them, when I was helping the Misses Stone. When I was doing good works.’

  ‘Did you Mom?’ Em said. ‘I never knew that.’

  ‘Stanton Street,’ I said, ‘Orchard Street, Eldridge Street. We worked for The Daughters of Jacob, teaching them hygiene and reading.’

  ‘So they could stop being unfortunates,’ Maxine piped up.

  Mortie was sharp with her. ‘Maxine,’ he said, ‘I don’t ever want to hear you use that word again. If people need help, help them. If they deserve respect, respect them. And if they don’t, just stay away from them. But don’t call them names.’

  ‘Grandma does,’ she said, but her face was burning, being correcte
d like that in front of company.

  ‘Grandma …’ Mortie began, but he pressed his lips together and went no further. He was in a sullen mood anyhow because it was Friday and Em said it wouldn’t be appropriate to do the Kiddush and the Motzi and all that business in another person’s house.

  ‘What Daddy means is,’ Em tried to soothe her, ‘anybody can have misfortunes. Some people can pick themselves up, and some need a hand, but misfortunes can come to anybody out of a clear blue sky.’

  ‘Very true,’ Edgar said. ‘Herd gets brucellosis. Bank goes belly up. One can be ruined. That’s why one should diversify.’

  Maxine commenced to glare at me, as though I was to blame for her receiving a telling off.

  Alan said, ‘I think there are people you could call unfortunates. I don’t think they’re the people Grandma means though. People who don’t have anyone are unfortunate. People who don’t have family.’

  Mortie liked that.

  ‘Well said, son,’ he said. ‘It’s nothing to do with money in the bank, or fancy houses. If you have a place to go on Friday nights, see the candles lit, share a blessing with your loved ones, you have everything you need.’

  He cast that particular fly for Emerald but she wasn’t biting. I had raised her to know politeness is more important than discommoding other people with your prayers.

  ‘And another point is this,’ Mortie pressed on. ‘A great misfortune is for a person not to know who he is.’

  ‘True, true,’ Edgar nodded. ‘Like that whipper-in from the Asfordby. Remember, Gelica? He was in a fearful collision with a milk tanker. Unconscious for days and when he did come to he had no idea who he was. Not a clue. Hunter had to be destroyed as well, of course. Terrible business.’

  Angelica said, ‘But he did remember, eventually.’

  ‘Yes,’ Edgar said. ‘He did. Although he was always rather odd afterwards.’

  Maxine had ceased her glowering. She and Alan had found something amusing.

  ‘A person who knows where he came from,’ Mortie said solemnly, ‘need never feel lost. Roots are a blessing. If you know where you came from, you know where you are and you can decide where you’re going.’

  ‘True, true, true,’ Edgar agreed. And Sir Neville let out one of his inexplicable hoots of laughter, recalling some gay remark from Mesopotamia I suppose.

  ‘We’re from the Boons,’ Maxine announced.

  ‘And from the Minkels,’ Alan reminded her. ‘And from the Merricks, and the Waxmans.’

  Miriam Boon had been a Waxman.

  ‘So we know who we are, and we always have Friday night dinner, and we have money,’ Maxine said. ‘We’re real fortunates. Where exactly does our money come from?’

  ‘From hard work and thrift,’ Mortie said. ‘From corsets made on a kitchen table. And a factory built up from nothing. And a premier range of swimwear.’

  ‘And mustard,’ I said. ‘Don’t forget Minkel’s Mighty Fine Mustard.’

  ‘Grandma,’ she said. That child asked way too many questions. ‘How does the mustard get made?’

  ‘In factories,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, but how?’

  I said, ‘I don’t know. I’m a collector and discoverer of important art.’

  ‘Don’t you ever go to see your factories?’ she said. ‘Where are they? Do they just make the mustard and send you the money?’

  ‘Maxine!’ Em warned her.

  ‘I’d like to see your factories,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen Daddy’s and Grampy Boon’s. I’d like to see how mustard gets made, so I know where I came from and where I’m going …’

  ‘To bed, if you don’t watch your step,’ Alan muttered.

  ‘Because if I don’t know that, I’ll be nothing but an unfortunate. Isn’t that right, Daddy?’

  ‘Seconds anyone?’ Angelica asked. The twenty-servings beef pie had been all afternoon in the coal oven, but I had found an icy lump at the center of my slice.

  FIFTY-NINE

  Maxine didn’t want to come to Paris. She wanted to remain at Stoke Glapthorne and go horseback riding every day, but Emerald and Mortie insisted. They said it was part of her education and I believe she would now agree with them. During that week she learned a great many things, including the story of my life. I took her out beyond Charonne and showed her where I used to keep my Curtiss Oriole.

  I said, ‘I used to fly Humphrey Choate to the racetrack. I flew him all the way to the Mediterranean Ocean, too, and that’s where I met your Grandpa Merrick.’

  ‘You did not,’ she said, and I hadn’t expected to be able to prove it to her, the St-Blaise airdrome now being a flying school run by a foreign person, but in the front office they had a fine display of old photographs, and there I was, parked outside the sheds. It was difficult to make out my features, and there was no sign of Choate or Beluga, but it was clearly labeled. ‘Mrs Poppy Catchings, circa 1923.’

  Maxine did her wonderment whistle.

  She said, ‘Could you fly us home?’

  ‘I could,’ I said, ‘but I choose not to. There’s no style to being an aviator anymore.’ We also went looking for Coquelicot which, as near as I could say, had become a chocolaterie, and to the Athenée to inquire about my lost property. A leopard and two foxes. The concierge had an inflated opinion of himself for a man who stands behind a desk all day handing out keys.

  ‘Madame?’ he said. ‘Since 1940? This a joke?’

  I said, ‘It certainly is not. And what about my shoe trees?’

  There was something about the words ‘shoe trees’ that caused Maxine to dissolve into a silent, shaking type of laughter that reminded me greatly of Emerald. The concierge did no more than turn his back on us and start paying lavish attention to a pair of darkies in bright orange robes.

  I said, ‘Now see what you did? How d’you expect this important monkey to treat me seriously when you’re sniggering at my side?’

  I called to the darkies. I said, ‘Your robes are adorable. I’ve a mind to get something like that myself.’

  They smiled most vivaciously.

  I said, ‘Never mind, Maxine. The Athenée Hotel is welcome to my old furs. There are plenty more where they came from.’

  ‘Grandma!’ she said. ‘You’re shouting.’

  Sometimes she was a real goody-two-shoes. When I was buying her a faux pony skin jacket she said, ‘I don’t know if I’m allowed. Maybe we should ask Mommy?’

  I told her, ‘Of course you’re allowed. Give people the opportunity, they’ll start prohibiting things. Make the least move and there’ll always be a line halfway round the block waiting to catch you out. This has been my experience in life.’

  Meanwhile Alan roamed the city with his bar-mitzvah camera. Maxine didn’t think that was allowed either but I figured sixteen was old enough. The way I looked at it, he might even meet a pretty girl and open his account. Then we’d be spared having another Murray in the family.

  Alan usually came and found us when it was time for dinner. Chartier was their favorite. I tried showing them a fancier side of Paris, but they liked the way waiters wrote your order on the tablecloth. They liked the way dinner arrived fast.

  ‘Know something, Grandma?’ he said one evening. ‘Nobody in this town talks about our people. About what happened to them.’

  I said, ‘What do you mean?’

  I knew what he meant, but I didn’t want him turning tragic on me, like Sapphire.

  ‘Before the war,’ he said, ‘there were Jews here. And after the war there weren’t. There are Jews here now. I’ve seen three temples today. But they’re not the old Jews come back. They’re a new lot. And nobody talks about where the old ones went.’

  I said, ‘People don’t care to dwell on those things.’

  ‘So I see,’ he said.

  I said, ‘Hitler sent them away.’

  ‘I know that,’ he said. ‘We learned all about that in school. I’ve seen pictures.’

  ‘What pictures?’ Maxine wanted to know.
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  I shot him a warning look. I didn’t want to be up all night with questions and nightmares.

  ‘Camps,’ he said.

  She said, ‘Like Seneca Lake Summer Camp?’

  He was a sensible boy.

  ‘Not exactly,’ he said. ‘Yeah. Kind of.’

  I dreamed I was eating dinner in Chartier. Aunt Fish was there, and Ma. They were trying to erase the writing off the tablecloth. And Neville Merrick was there, too, laughing at regimental jokes. Then a telephone began ringing but I couldn’t pick up because my arms were tied to my side. It rang and rang until suddenly it wasn’t a dream anymore and my arms were free and I answered.

  ‘Mom?’ Emerald said.

  They were staying at the Lygon Arms Hotel in Cotswoldshire, at my expense. There was a cheap side to Mortie and I wanted my girl to have the best.

  I said, ‘Did you get a bed with drapes?’

  ‘Mom,’ she said. ‘We have to go home. Something terrible happened.’

  Then Mortie came on.

  ‘Poppy,’ he said, ‘I don’t know an easy way to do a thing like this, so I’ll just come right out with it. Sapphire has passed away.’

  How few are the moments we remember precisely, long after they are past. I recall perfectly the color of the sky as the Carpathia came home without my Pa. But I can’t remember his going away. I recall exactly how it felt to have to go to the ballet wearing black day shoes with a borrowed Directoire gown. And the feel of Gilbert Catchings’ fist against my jaw. I don’t at all remember the moment when Sapphire was first placed in my arms. But I remember when she was taken from me.

  Our room had a marble mantelpiece and a complimentary bowl of fruit and Maxine’s clothes left in a heap where she had stepped out of them. I listened into the telephone and saw an old lady’s hand on the celadon coverlet, plucking at the machine embroidery with a fleshy finger. Maxine was still sleeping and Mortie was talking about airplane tickets, and someone had slipped in unseen and placed the heaviest weight around my heart.

  SIXTY

  We were met by Sherman and Murray.

  I said to Murray, ‘I thought you couldn’t travel anymore.’