‘Tell me about it. I keep thinking, maybe we should change our lives once Sally is off at college next year. But . . .’
I didn’t complete the thought. Because I didn’t know how to complete the thought.
‘Change,’ Richard said. ‘That ferociously loaded word.’
We started walking up Commonwealth Avenue. I’d been along this boulevard several times before, and had always admired it in a half-fleeting touristic way. Today, however, I began to closely regard the townhouses and apartment buildings and mansions that lined the avenue, and seemed part of a Boston more rooted in Henry James than any contemporary realities. Maybe it was the way the venerable stone and brickwork interplayed with the late-afternoon sun. Maybe it was the matchless autumnal palette of the trees interspersed with the nineteenth-century streetlights. Maybe it was Richard’s animated commentary about the history of this avenue and the way he seemed to have a story about every residence we passed . . . and from the immense knowledge he displayed it was clear to me that he hadn’t gleaned all this off the Internet late last night; that, in fact, he had made quite the study of this historic thoroughfare, as he knew it with an intimacy and verve that bespoke of serious erudition.
This led me to imagine him in his home in Bath – a modest house, he told me, on one of those streets near the Iron Works. I’m certain it had an attic room he had converted into a home office: a simple desk, an old armchair, a computer that was (like my own at home) a few years out of date – because Richard didn’t strike me as someone who spent a lot of money on himself. This office was his escape hatch: the place he could quietly shut the door on a marriage that had evidently flat-lined and was so devoid of comfort, and away from the ongoing sadness that was his son Billy. Here Richard could lose himself in his considerable curiosity. Whether it be the OED (and I was pretty certain he had the full multi-volumed Oxford dictionary, that was one indulgence he would have treated himself to), or one of those Norton editions of American poetry, or the vast research possibilities of the Internet – once in that room Richard could vanish into the realm of language and historical detail. And envisage perhaps (as we all do) a life beyond the one that we have constructed for ourselves.
Change. The great ongoing desire that underscores all feelings of entrapment. Change. Richard was right: it was such a ferociously loaded word.
‘Now I don’t know who the architect was here,’ Richard said as we passed a mansion that he identified as being ‘so close to the American Regency style that Edith Wharton wrote about in novels like The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence . . . even though most Bostonians would say that New York copied them when it came to mid-nineteenth-century grand houses.’
‘You know this avenue so well.’
‘I told you, I plan to live here in the next life.’
‘Where exactly?’
‘Next street up from here. Southwest corner of Dartmouth and Comm Ave.’
‘Nice to know what’s planned for oneself in the afterlife.’
‘“The next life” doesn’t mean the hereafter,’ he said.
‘So when does the next life commence?’
‘That’s the eternal question.’
‘Or not eternal, as life is so profoundly temporal,’ I said.
‘Do you believe in the notion of “time to come”?’
‘I know that faith is the antithesis of proof. Which means that all belief – especially religious belief – is bound up in the acceptance of a storyline which, though comforting, is rather hard to get your head around. Then again, if I was told tomorrow that I had Stage Four cancer, would I be tempted to ask Jesus to be my Lord and Savior? As much as I’d truly like to think there is something beyond all this, the leap of faith that is required is simply beyond me. It saddens me thinking that. But I have wrestled with it a bit – and my conclusion quite simply is, this is it. And you?’
‘I’d like to say I’m a hedger of bets. I know several very committed Christians who are absolutely convinced that they will be handed a locker room key and a towel from St Peter when they leave this life. I am certainly not against anyone believing all that – the primary function of religion being the lessening of fear about death. But . . . well, I read that when Steve Jobs was dying of cancer, he told one close friend that, though he was very much fascinated by all sorts of mystical and spiritual notions of the life to come, a great part of him couldn’t help but think that death was like the switch on all his computers that shuts everything down. Death – the ultimate off switch.’
‘Bizarrely, there is some comfort in that, isn’t there? The end of consciousness. The computer goes blank. Forever.’
‘The problem is, we are the only species with a proper consciousness, who can feel guilt, regret. And say you reach the end of your life . . .’
‘. . . with the knowledge that you hadn’t really lived your life?’
We were on the corner of Commonwealth and Dartmouth, in front of a brownstone that had four floors, and whose brickwork was sooty brown, but which still looked (from the state of the door and the shutters on its windows) well-maintained. Compared to the other more lavish mansions and apartment buildings on the street this one was a little more modest but still utterly charming. There was a For Sale sign attached to the iron railings that fronted the street – the smaller print stating that the apartment seeking a buyer was a one-bedroom ‘with great Old World charm’.
‘So this is the place?’ I asked.
‘Third floor, those three windows facing the street.’
The windows were large ones, indicating high ceilings.
‘Nice,’ I said.
‘I actually sneaked down to Boston around two weeks ago to see the place myself. Really airy space. Great parquet floors. A living room that stretches the whole length of the building. A good-sized bedroom. An alcove off the living room that would be a perfect little office. The bathroom and the kitchen are a bit out of date. But the realtor told me that the asking price of three hundred and five thousand was negotiable; that the sellers had a deal which fell through last year, and they really want a fast closing, and if I could pay two sixty-five cash it was mine.’
‘Can you pay that?’
‘Actually I can. I’ve been one of those assiduous savers who’ve set aside twenty percent of his net income every year. I’ve got about four hundred thousand in the bank. A lawyer I consulted down in Portland – Bath is too small to be talking divorce with anyone – told me that if I was to give Muriel the house in Bath, she’d have no claim on any of that money. And I have another client down here, a builder in Dorchester, who told me he could get a spiffy new bathroom and kitchen installed, repaint the walls, strip and re-stain all the floorboards, all for around thirty-five grand. After taxes and the like, I’d come out with a paid-off Commonwealth Avenue apartment and about seventy-five thousand still left in the bank.’
‘Most of all, you’d be living here – where you’ve always wanted to live.’
‘That’s right. I know I could even run much of my business down here, and probably hire someone to take over Muriel’s administrative job at the agency – though knowing Muriel she’d probably insist on staying on, taking a salary, keeping busy, which would be fine by me. She is very competent.’
‘So when are you moving?’
I could see Richard’s shoulders tense, his lips tighten.
‘Life is never that straightforward, is it?’ he said.
‘I suppose not. Still, if you have it all worked out . . .’
‘Does anyone ever have it “all worked out”?’
I smiled.
‘You’re far too right about all that. But this time I really do want to make the move . . . as messy and unpleasant as it might all be.’
‘Everyone I know who’s divorced has always said it’s the anticipation of the end of a marriage that is the most devastating. In the end, once they had finally moved out, they were always baffled as to why they hadn’t done it years earlier. But now I really
am speaking far too bluntly.’
‘Or maybe revealing a thought that had also crossed your mind as well?’ he asked.
Now it was my turn to clench my shoulders and purse my lips.
‘Life is never straightforward, is it . . . as you yourself said.’
‘And maybe I’ve crossed a frontier I shouldn’t have.’
‘Then we’re even. And the truth is, I wish I was in your position.’
‘I feel a little stupid about regaling you with all the financial details of the sale.’
‘But the reason you are telling me this is because you’re still trying to see if you can go through with it . . . and are understandably struggling with it, as I certainly would too.’
‘You’re half right, But the other reason I told you all that is because nobody, not even my closest friend the police captain, knows about this. And because I can actually talk to you. And . . . well . . . a woman I can talk to . . . not something I’ve had much experience of.’
I reached out and touched his arm.
‘Thank you for telling me that.’
He covered my hand with his.
‘It’s me who should be thanking you.’
‘It’s also me who should be thanking you.’
‘For what?’
‘For getting me to let down my guard for a change. It’s something everyone at work always says about me. I am perfectly professional and pleasant, but completely guarded. Dan has often told me the same thing – I have this taciturn side.’
‘That’s news to me,’ he said, his hand still covering mine.
‘You don’t know me yet.’
‘You can know a great deal about someone in just a few hours.’
‘Just like I now know that you are going to buy this apartment.’
Richard glanced back up at the top of the brownstone, his hand leaving mine. And in a voice just a decibel or so above a whisper he said:
‘I hope that’s the outcome.’
Why shouldn’t it be? I wanted to ask him. But instead I held back, simply saying:
‘I hope so too.’
Richard’s gaze returned to me.
‘So . . . any thoughts about what we should do now? If, that is, you want to . . .’
‘. . . continue the afternoon? No, I want to flee the elegance of Commonwealth Avenue to return to that God-awful hotel and attend the five p.m. conference on advanced colonoscopy techniques . . . not that I do colonoscopies.’
‘But it sounds so romantic.’
I laughed. Then said:
‘If you’re agreeable, what I’d like to find now is a museum or art gallery, because that’s something I can’t walk to back home. And I’d prefer something I’m not going to see in Maine. Heard of the ICA?’
‘That new place on the harbor front?’
‘Exactly. I read an article about it in some magazine. The Institute of Contemporary Art. Modern, edgy, out there. And with a water view.’
‘And, no doubt, filled with people wearing black and looking modern, edgy, out there.’
‘So . . . we can gawk at all the urban boho types.’
‘The way you’re dressed you’ll fit right in.’
‘And you think you won’t?’
‘The way I’m dressed I will look like the most boring—’
‘Then change,’ I said, again my mouth working ahead of my usual cautious thought processes.
‘What?’ he said, staring at me with confusion.
‘Change – that treacherous verb. As in, if you don’t like the way you’re dressed now, change your clothes.’
‘And how will I do that?’
‘How do you think?’
He considered this for a moment. Then:
‘That’s a crazy idea.’
‘But you’re not totally against it, are you?’
He considered this for another moment.
‘Well . . . “change” does rhyme with “strange”. And strange is . . .’
‘Maybe not as strange as you think.’
Five
SYNONYMS FOR ‘RANDOM’: ‘unselected’, ‘irregular’, ‘chance’, ‘by hazard’, ‘happenstantial’.
Happenstantial. As in happenstance. As in, the business of stumbling into something new, unforeseen, unpredictable. Like the happenstantial way I met Richard. And met him again at that movie theater. And agreed to lunch. And the happenstantial way we drifted into the trajectory of this afternoon – which, like all events predicated on randomness, had no foreseen trajectory to it; the fact that we had proceeded from Commonwealth Ave and Newbury Street was predicated on a wholly aleatorical set of circumstances . . . though aleatorical almost implies chance by design, which perhaps makes it the right synonym to be used to describe all this. Because behind the random lies choice. Which, in turn, means that subtext always lurks behind the happenstantial – except that the subtext is something that only arises courtesy of the pinball-like way an event begets an event, which, in turn, begets the fact that we are now on that exceptionally elegant and luxe stretch of Boston real estate known as Newbury Street, and have just stepped into a boutique (because this is certainly not ‘a shop’) that sells eyeglasses.
‘So do we call this place an opticians, an ophthalmologist, an eyeglass store, or a spectacle emporium?’ I asked.
‘Spectacles – specs – is still, I think, parlance in England. And as we are in New England . . .’
‘Well, the place is called Specs.’
‘Don’t think this is the place for me,’ Richard said. ‘I mean, look at the guy behind the counter.’
The fellow he was speaking about had a shaved head and a pair of high-modern pince-nez glasses hugging his nose. He also had large black circular earrings implanted in both earlobes.
‘He looks reasonably friendly,’ I said.
‘For someone who belongs in 1920s Berlin. This guy is going to look at me—’
‘And see a potential customer. Now stop all the fretting and just—’
I opened the door and all but pushed him into the shop. Rather than being all cold and ‘too cool for school’, the fellow behind the counter was charm itself.
‘Now I surmise from the way your wife had to shove you in here,’ he said, ‘you are just a little reluctant to try a change of style.’
Richard did not correct him about the ‘your wife’ comment. Nor did he seem to blanch when the guy accurately read his unease. Instead he said:
‘That’s right. I’m a style-free zone.’
The guy, who had a name-plate on the counter in front of him – ‘Gary: Spectician’ (is there such a word?) – reassured Richard that he was ‘among friends here’. He then proceeded to expertly take charge. Within half an hour – having put Richard at ease – he talked him through various frame styles, quickly discerning that, when it came to wanting a particular look, Richard hadn’t a clue what he really was after. So Gary showed him all sorts of permutations. After talking about how – given his coloring and his oval face – highly geometric frames ‘might be just a tad too severe . . . and I really don’t think we want the harshness of metal again, now do we?’ he convinced Richard to choose a brownish, slightly oval frame: highly stylish, but simultaneously not a radical statement. Nonetheless, seeing them on him, it was clear that they changed his look. Rather than appearing angular and actuarial Richard now came across as somewhat hip, professorial. Bookish. Thoughtful.
‘You think they work?’ Richard asked, clearly approving of the image reflecting back to him in Gary’s mirror, but also needing my sanction.
‘They’re a great fit,’ I said.
‘As long as your optician in Bath can give me your prescription over the phone, I’ll have them ready for you in about an hour.’
Luck was on our side. The optician in Bath was able to scan Richard’s prescription down to Gary – and we headed back out to Newbury Street.
‘Now let’s find you a leather jacket,’ I said.
‘I feel strange,’ Richard said.
‘Because I’m being bossy?’
‘You’re hardly bossy. But you are persuasive.’
‘But, as a salesman, surely you know the thing about persuasiveness is that you can only persuade someone if they truly want to be persuaded.’
‘And I clearly want to be persuaded?’
‘I’m not going to answer that question.’
‘Four hundred dollars for a pair of glasses. I never thought . . .’
‘What?’
‘That I could be so self-indulgent.’
‘Glasses are hardly indulgent.’
‘Designer glasses are.’
‘And let me guess – you had a father who told you that . . .’
‘A father and a mother who counted every penny. And, wouldn’t you know it, I married a woman who also thinks that thrift is one of the more profound virtues. And since she is my bookkeeper and sees all my credit card statements . . .’
She’s not your mother I suddenly wanted to tell him, simultaneously wondering why so many men turn their wives into mothers, and why so many women seemed more than willing to play that emasculating role. And this thought connected to another one: how Dan himself had, in his ongoing resentful moments, talked to me as if I was the actual disapproving woman who had raised him and who had always let him know he was a disappointment to her. Knowing so well the pain that he had carried with him from childhood, I had always tried to tack away from the criticism that so haunted him. And yet, ever since all went wrong with his career, he’d cast me in that mother role. A role I certainly didn’t want.
‘When she sees the designer glasses,’ I said, ‘tell her—’
‘“I needed new glasses . . . and, by the way, I’m moving to Boston.”’
‘That’s pretty definitive,’ I said.
‘So where do we find a leather jacket around here?’
We wandered up several blocks, all lined with the big designer label boutiques. Stopping in Burberry, there was an amazing black leather jacket in the window which looked like something a modern Byronic figure would wear . . . and with a list price of over $2,000.
‘Even if I had that sort of money I don’t think I could carry that jacket off,’ Richard said. ‘Too Errol Flynn for me.’
Five Days Page 18
