The Pagan House

by David Flusfeder

  ‘It’s a stiff,’ he said, to regather himself, as he found his ball.

  The girl was gone. Squeezing the ball tightly in his hand, which fell in dwindling triumph, he softly said her name, ‘Me. Shell.’

  ‘Edward? Come in here. Meet your uncle Frank.’

  Uncle Frank had brown-grey hair, which was brushed back, and he wore glasses, which he probably thought made him look intelligent. Everything he did was done with belligerence and scorn.

  ‘And this is your aunt Lucille, and your cousins Paul and Michelle.’

  Frank was dressed in the same sort of clothes as his son, khaki shorts and a grey hooded top, except that the clothes made Paul look like an athlete while Uncle Frank looked like an accountant pretending to be an off-duty policeman. Paul had blond hair and lounged in a chair with the physical ease that Edgar had always longed to possess. Aunt Lucille was painted and voluptuous and made everything she did into an erotic event. She opened her arms to Edgar. ‘I haven’t seen you since you were a baby. You were adorable. Are you too old now to give your aunt a kiss?’

  Edgar, mutely, nodded. He was saved by Warren: ‘Eddie’s got soccer camp. Maybe Paul is going to want to go with him.’

  Edgar wanted to go to soccer camp. He wanted to see Electa. She would be the first to hear about his discovery of the corpse. He did not want Paul to go with him. He hoped very hard that Paul was not going to want to come with him.

  ‘Sure. I don’t mind,’ Paul said.

  ‘You need kit,’ Edgar said.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘What you wear.’

  ‘Like uniform you mean? I got something I can wear.’

  Edgar argued further until he realized that he had gone some way beyond the point of appearing ridiculous. He did not want this blond, goddish boy with him. The ease of Paul in his own skin called everything about Edgar into question. He had thought Husky Marvin was severe competition. He did not want to see Electa’s face in that moment of revelation, the eye-widening, heart-quickening moment of seeing Paul for the first time, and everyone else belittled beside him.

  ‘Michelle?’ said Warren. He had to say it a few times before she noticed. She had her hands wrapped up inside her jumper and her eyes on the cookie jar.

  ‘Michelle?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You want to come? I can run the three of you down in the station-wagon.’

  Edgar was pleased to see Paul struggling with an equivalently ignoble feeling. Michelle reflected badly on Paul just as much as Paul outshone Edgar. The same genes, a different combination.

  ‘I don’t mind,’ she said.

  Michelle didn’t have a kit or a uniform. Nor did she join in. She stood, hands inside tailing jumper sleeves, by the wooden rail that separated the soccer pitch from the running track. There was soon a cluster of boys beside her, led by the scrawniest and pimpliest of his intimidators at Dino’s pizza parlour. Sidled beside Michelle, Ray Newhouse made his pitch, talking loudly, purportedly to Edgar.

  ‘I’m a direct descendant of the greatest lover in history. Giacomo fucking Casanova. You know what Casanova means in Italian? “New house”, that’s what it means. And the expertise, my friend, is in the blood.’

  Michelle was unimpressed. She left Ray Newhouse and went to where the other girls were, watching Husky Marvin warming up out on the field, because the girls liked to adore Husky Marvin. Ray Newhouse spat into the dirt. He watched the girls watching Husky Marvin and held on tightly to the fence, disregarding the way the wire cut into his fingers.

  ‘We better go through,’ Edgar said.

  ‘I won’t be much of a player,’ Paul said. ‘Soccer is not really my sport.’

  But, of course, he excelled. It was not so much the natural skills he showed, the goals he scored, the runs he made into the space that his body (Edgar doubted his intelligence) somehow knew was where the ball was going to ricochet to, although all that was impressive; what really clinched it were Paul’s mannerisms, as if he’d spent half a lifetime looking at photographs of footballers and practising how they sat on footballs with a towel around their shoulders listening to the coach, or playing keepie-uppie with a ball, juggling it between instep and thigh. A marvellous narcissism led him to the most elegant, most camera-ready posture.

  ‘He’s my cousin,’ Edgar admitted to Electa, when she ran over to ask. And he hated her at that moment. He had expected this but all the same had hoped for more, that she at least would put up some resistance to the phenomenal Paul. At the end of practice, Paul detached himself from the admiration of Coach Weathers, and Michelle from the attentions of Todd and Andy and Ray, whose hand tugged at her jumper as she was leaving causing the hem to rise, revealing a flash of skin, white and smooth and less baggy than Edgar had expected—he had supposed her flesh to be the same shapeless texture as the concealing clothes she wore. He was also surprised by Michelle’s movement, a controlled spin, a chiding smile, You leave me alone, you’re nasty, you’re a nasty boy, performed with an unlikely grace that was quite powerfully erotic.

  Electa seemed to be waiting for Edgar to approach her, so Edgar, to test her, waited with his sneakers laced around his neck, his sports bag in one hand, his ball in the other, for Electa to come to him, but it was a test she failed—with a dismissive wave she made her way back down to Creek.

  At supper, Edgar sat angled away from Lucille at all times because she terrified him. Michelle and Paul sat opposite Edgar. They were going to sleep in the room next to him, their parents in Frank’s room, which foolish Edgar had thought was being prepared for his father.

  ‘I tried to take a shower,’ Frank announced. ‘Can you believe this? They don’t have a shower in the house. How can people live like this?’

  ‘Warren persuaded me to change the fittings after he moved in here. We decided the house should look as its makers intended.’

  ‘Oh yes? And what else has he persuaded you to do?’

  Uncle Frank questioned Warren throughout the meal, and at first Edgar had been relieved—any new assemblage of company usually meant questions for him, school, girlfriends, favourite subjects, hobbies, the cuteness of his accent, the originality of his hair, what he thought of America, was Britain going to the dogs—but it went on, relentless and dull, with Warren answering every question with courtesy and care. Edgar tried to help. He volunteered unlikely information. ‘Soccer camp is fun,’ he said.

  Michelle giggled. She giggled a lot. Warren nodded gravely, in acknowledgement of Edgar’s attempts to shift the focus. Paul stretched, beautifully. He did everything beautifully and there wasn’t a thing in his head except the warm glow of self-pleasure.

  ‘The weather here is quite a lot like London, except it’s not as damp,’ Edgar said.

  ‘Just you wait,’ Fay said. ‘After the Blackberry Festival, the fall gets awful damp.’

  ‘Please,’ said Frank. ‘We haven’t driven all this way to talk about the weather.’

  ‘I should think not,’ said Lucille. ‘The traffic on the interstate was atrocious.’

  ‘Or the traffic. Let’s get a grip here.’

  Michelle giggled. She slouched back in her chair and her foot rested, Edgar supposed inadvertently, against his knee. He lifted his leg to allow Michelle to realize her mistake but the pressure of the foot became, if anything, stronger.

  ‘Maybe we should, you know, wait for, more appropriate,’ Fay said, wheezing lightly, waving a hand towards the younger family members at the table.

  ‘I hope I’m not embarrassing anybody. I’m not embarrassed,’ Frank said. ‘Are you embarrassed, kids? You see, Mom? They’re not embarrassed. They’re family. In fact, that might be the point.’

  Lucille nodded sagely. ‘Frank’s a very good son. He thinks of you all the time. It makes him very sad how neglectful Mike is.’

  ‘But at least he’s family,’ Frank said, turning his belligerence full on to Warren. ‘What are you?’

  ‘Please leave him alone,’ Fay said.


  ‘Uh. No.’ Frank laughed. His laugh was abrupt and wolfish. ‘I’m not going to leave him alone. That’s just what I’m not going to do. There are things have to be said. You don’t mind, Warren, do you? I’m not embarrassing you?’

  ‘No, Frank. You’re not embarrassing me.’

  Edgar admired Warren for the quiet suggestion in his tone that Frank might be embarrassing himself, and felt guilty for having gone through his room and being suspicious of him and he vowed to make it up. He shifted quickly in his chair and achieved the double success of feeling Michelle’s foot drop from his knee while avoiding eye-contact with Lucille.

  ‘That was delicious,’ Lucille said, pushing her emptied plate towards the centre of the table.

  ‘Come on Lucille. Not you too now.’

  ‘I’m just saying the meal was delicious. It doesn’t hurt to be a little polite. You’re a very good cook, Warren.’

  ‘Thank you. I’m glad you enjoyed the meal.’

  ‘Oh I’m sure Warren is a very good cook. No doubt about it. I’m sure Warren is very good at lots of things. Come on. Let’s not beat around the bush any more. Warren, tell me. Enough of all this bullshit. Where do you get your money from? Fay pay you a salary? How much?’

  Warren nodded, as if he had been expecting this question. He continued to nod as he answered, ‘I have a little income.’

  ‘An income?’ Lucille echoed, tasting the word pleasurably in her mouth.

  ‘An income? What kind of income?’

  ‘From back home.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘The rent, on some property I own.’

  Frank and Lucille awarded him a slight, grudging respect. Warren owned property, therefore he couldn’t be all bad.

  ‘So you’re doing all this for love?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking.’

  He looked to Fay, who shook her head.

  ‘Well I’m fucked if I’m going to say sorry,’ said Frank, which was the first interesting thing he had said. ‘Sorry,’ he then said. ‘I mean, excuse my French, I’m not apologizing for anything else.’

  He fell into a belligerent silence, which Lucille filled. ‘Paul is a very talented athlete,’ she announced.

  Paul, to his credit, looked neither proud nor coy. He took tributes as his due.

  ‘They’ve got a wonderful sport programme at the high school in Onyataka. And Michelle is really very gifted at art and communications. They have a very good art and communications programme also.’

  ‘The school they go to now is a jungle,’ Frank said. ‘Metaldetector at the gates, can you believe it? Kids in junior high carrying knives, packing heat.’

  ‘I’ve really fallen in love with this neighbourhood, it’s s-special,’ Lucille said.

  ‘The landscape is very pretty,’ Frank said, without conviction. ‘Wherever I’ve gone I’ve always taken a part of it with me.’

  ‘But I think it’s the people that make a place what it is, don’t you agree?’ Lucille said. ‘Where are you from, Warren?’

  ‘Near Dublin. A little place called Mulhuddart. You won’t have heard of it.’

  ‘I love Ireland. There’s something so magical about the Emerald Isle. But doesn’t your mother miss you?—living all that way away?’

  ‘She’s not, I’m afraid, with us any more.’

  ‘Oh. I’m sorry.’

  ‘She died. Some while ago.’

  ‘And your father?’

  ‘He keeps himself busy. He has a drinking hobby to sustain.’

  ‘Oh really. I’m sorry. And what about a sweetheart? Have you ever been married?’

  ‘Ha!’ said Frank.

  ‘No. I never have.’

  Warren was very good at treating questions on their own terms. He was very good at most things. The questioning went on, and Warren gave his scrupulous answers, and Edgar and Paul and Michelle were encouraged to leave the table. Michelle suggested a game to play but Edgar, fearful of her smile and intentions, stretched and yawned and announced his intention to sleep.

  In the night, hungry for cookies and chocolate milk, for the possibility of Michelle, Edgar went downstairs. He was expecting to find the kitchen empty, but Warren sat at the table, his shoulders hunched, a ruler beside him, head studiously close to the words he was writing. Edgar stood in the doorway. Bare-chested, the lino cold against his feet, he felt narrow and unsure. Edgar moved closer, his thirst gone: he wanted to see what Warren was writing. He walked making no sound; he reached the refrigerator, inched forward. Warren was drawing single words in block capitals inside neat squares. He had nearly filled the sheet he was working on. There was one sheet already done, on the table to his right. Edgar walked closer. He had read the words ‘POTS (MISC.)’ and ‘BAKING’ when he felt the further chill of Warren’s attention upon him.

  ‘Anything I can do for you Eddie?’

  ‘Uh. No,’ Edgar managed to say. ‘I was just thirsty, going to get a glass of water.’

  ‘Sure, help yourself,’ said Warren, who was now, perhaps accidentally, covering both sheets with his arms.

  Edgar selected a glass, went to the sink.

  ‘You sure you wouldn’t fancy a YooHoo instead?’

  ‘Yes. I’m sure,’ Edgar said, careful to hide his weakness and his greed.

  15

  Edgar saw flickerings of the argument on the Mansion House lawn. Across Vail Avenue, between the Mansion House and a copse of beech trees, was a small romantic place, a summer-house made of twisted and entwined branches of nineteenth-century wood that Edgar’s imagination filled with midnight trysts with Electa, except, in his susceptible imagination, her face kept getting blurred into Michelle’s. Fay was on the gardening rota, because Warren hadn’t been able to persuade her to give up much of her volunteer work at the Mansion House. She was leaning against a wheelbarrow, huddled in a man’s overcoat, antique and fur-collared, while Warren deadheaded roses with a viciousness that was unusual to him. Edgar, remembering his private-investigator status, crept up the slope to listen and observe.

  ‘If that’s what you choose to believe,’ Warren said (thwack! thwack!), ‘then who am I to try to take it away from you?’ (THWACK!)

  ‘But you …’ she said sadly.

  Warren took a moment away from his brutality to the flowers to wipe his forehead with the sleeve of his sweatshirt (grey, faded letters, occluded crest) and to shrug. ‘Whatever,’ he said. ‘Thirty-five, fifteen, infant, human, animal, it doesn’t make any sense to me. But I guess that’s what faith’s all about,’ he added, straightening his shoulders, making himself agreeable again. ‘It’s an individual thing, right?’

  ‘What does the other woman believe?’

  Warren looked pained. ‘Please,’ he said. He turned to pat down a fresh mound of earth beside the summer-house and saw Edgar. ‘Hey Eddie, how’s it going?’

  ‘Good,’ Edgar said.

  Pleased that his grandmother no longer looked sad, he felt no lingering obligation to stay.

  In the Music Room, Edgar listened to his father’s record collection through headphones. He drummed along, hoping the sound was muffled by the tea-towel he had smuggled out of the kitchen and laid over the coffee-table. These sounds are raw and thrilling, primal he supposes the word is, but, alarmingly, every single song on the album he was listening to faded out. He used to like fade-outs. Now he didn’t. They worried him. Somewhere, thought Edgar, there was a room where the songs that faded out continued to play, muffled, perhaps even hidden from earshot by thick, corklined walls but sustaining, despite the efforts of the musicians to end, but there can be no ending; the engineer’s careless fingers damp down the sound for the listeners but not for the players, who are doomed to play this song for ever—and every time the song is played, another doomed identical band joins its brothers in that cursed room; and Edgar was implicated, how can he not be? Each listening cursed another mirror band. So, as the record spun, as the arm holding the needle bobbed along its groove, Edgar quickly lifted the arm awa
y because part of the magic of it was that the curse only began to apply when the engineer’s hand lowered, when the volume faded, and Edgar had saved at least one incarnation of the band from playing perpetually in that awful room where the cacophony and the repetition must get too loud to bear.

  Although maybe a counter-magic was possible. If you listen very carefully, if you turn the volume right up when the final fadeout begins, then all kinds of things might be happening; what sounds like a stray bum note on the guitar might have been the beginning of something extraordinary, because maybe the musicians are aware of it too: they watch the engineer, they see him look to the clock, yawn, shift forward to the console to fade the song away, and now they can do what they really want to do, they can play the real music that the rest has been just the necessary, public, prelude to; first comes the job, the ordinary expected song, and now come the occult sounds that only those who know can possibly hear.

  Blasting himself back into the now, Edgar put on one of the loudest records of his father’s collection and he danced, happy dervish flailing. Warren found him there, finally attracted his attention by waving the spanner in his hand. ‘So this is where you hide yourself!’ Warren yelled.

  Edgar, embarrassed, lifted the headphones away from his ears. ‘Not hiding,’ he said.

  ‘What’s that you’re listening to?’

  Edgar, to answer, pulled out the headphone lead and enjoyed the effect of the desperate power chords that could shatter anyone’s soul. Warren pantomime-cowered with his hands over his ears. ‘For God’s sake you’ll kill us all!’

  Edgar, happy, lowered the volume. ‘It’s the Stooges. It’s from my father’s collection.’

  ‘Is that right? Well I’m glad you found the headphones. Have you got a moment? Fay would like to see you.’

  He was unfamiliar with the ways of an invalid’s room. The door was ajar but he knocked anyway.

  ‘Come in.’

  Fay was propped on pillows in the centre of the bed. She patted the coverlet beside her for Edgar to sit. Her hair was most magnificently disarrayed. She smiled. A sketchbook was beside her on the bed. She had begun a drawing, in quavery lines, of trees and bushes surrounding an empty field.