“Inadmissible,”he says.
”Probably,”Kate answers.“It’s for a magazine.You know? For people sitting under hair dryers.”Yet she cannot let his legal point stand un-questioned.“But why couldn’t such information be used in court? Itis relevant that he’s been violent in the past, it helps establish a pattern of solving domestic issues in a completely brutal manner.”No, this is not what she wants them to be talking about, but she can’t give up the search for the right words, the verbal alchemy that would bring him around.
Even as she drills through layer after layer ofmurk, she keeps her hopes up for the ultimate strike, that surging thrilling gusher ofepiphanous recognition.
“I think ifI were accused ofsome terrible crime,”Daniel says slowly, seemingly as reluctant as Kate to discuss this case,“a lawyer or a writer could probably find some old girlfriend who’d be willing to trash me.”
“Well, I certainly never would.No matter what anybody said, I would always think you were a good man.”
He glances at her and colors.It looks for a moment as ifhe might even cry, and Kate thinks to herself:Good.One for my side.
The early afternoon train from Leyden pulls into Penn Station, and Iris, who has slept most ofthe ride and who nevertheless can barely keep her eyes open, stands up unsteadily and pulls her black nylon travel bag down from the overhead rack.She has packed one change ofclothes, a night-gown, a plastic zippered bag full oftoiletries (including her diaphragm), and a couple ofthick, heavy books—what Hampton calls, in his Johnny Carson voice,“weighty tomes”—she has been meaning to read for thesis research purposes, and which take up more room than everything else she has brought with her to NewYork.She has settled into a kind offugue-state ofemotional neutrality, allowing the two hours’silence and the rhythmic rocking ofthe train to lull her into a strange, sad peacefulness.
She realizes this time in the city alone with Hampton may well require ofher a degree ofwatchfulness, a certain deftness ofemotional ma-neuvering.
The arrangement is that she will taxi down to the apartment, and Hampton—who is meant to play squash at the DowntownAthletic Club with a Jamaican rum bottler—will meet her there no more than halfan hour later.But as soon as Iris steps offthe train, she sees Hampton wait-ing for her on the platform, craning his long neck and trying to pick her out ofthe stream ofarriving passengers.She knows this is meant to pleasantly surprise her, but the sight ofhim makes her spirits plummet.
He looks like a teacher striding down the rows ofdesks, passing out the questions to a surprise quiz.
He sees her.He raises his hand to signal her and she sees that—horrors—he is holding a long-stemmed rose.He has undoubtedly bought it from one ofthe vendors right here in Penn Station, but nevertheless he waves the flower at her, to signal her that this Saturday in Manhattan is meant to be one ofhigh romance.
“What happened to your squash game?”Iris says, as Hampton kisses her cheek, takes her bag offher shoulder and hefts it onto his.
“I wanted to meet you,”he says.
This leaves the question about his squash game unanswered.It isn’t like Hampton to put personal life over business—actually, Iris has always likedthis aspect ofhim—and she suspects he is here on the warm, smoky, stinking-of-diesel-fuel platform because his game has been cancelled.
She lags behind him as they make their way out.There’s an escalator, but Hampton always chooses the stairs, for the sake offitness.She ad-mires his body as she walks behind him.He is wearing his Saturday at-tire:khaki pants, a white polo shirt under a dark-green cashmere sweater, brown loafers.Even his casual clothes are carefully chosen, crisply ironed, but ofcourse there are no casual occasions for Hampton, not at the dinner table, not in bed, and certainly not out in public.
“Everything okay up in the country?”he asks.“How’s Nellie?”
She doesn’t bother to answer.He doesn’t really expect an answer, he’s just recording the fact that he’s asked.Yet when they reach the main hall ofthe station, Hampton surprises her and repeats the question.
“Everything cool with Nellie?”
The simple, truthful answer would be:No.Nelson has been agitated, clingy, explosive, nagging, and oppositional.He has been putting Band-Aids on his hands and knees without any physical reason for doing so.He has been cruel to Scarecrow to the point where the usually patient and forgiving old dog will leave the room when she hears Nelson’s footsteps.
Every night since the storm—except when Hampton has been home—Nelson has come into her bed between midnight and two and slept there until he woke both himself and his mother by peeing his pajamas.And when she has whispered to him,“Nelson, get up, let’s change your pj’s,”
he has screamed at her like some crazed motorist on the freeway after a fender-bender.This morning, when she was backing her car out ofthe driveway, he was straining to break free ofIris’s sister, who had driven her sporty little green Mazda up from Baltimore two days earlier to spend a little time with Iris before the weekend, and to give Nelson time to get used to her.Whatever level oftrust and comfort he had reached seemed to be obliterated by the sight ofIris actually leaving:he was not only kicking and howling but he was also trying to sink his teeth into his aunt’s restraining hand.
“He’s okay,”Iris says.“He was nervous about my leaving, but he loves Carol, so that made it a little easier.”
“He’ll be fine,”Hampton says.He dislikes Carol, thinks ofher as promiscuous, brassy, silly, unread;he cannot bear her prattling on about her real estate business.She is unmarried, her days are full ofoffice tasks and her nights are full ofboyfriends.Yet he cannot say anything critical ofCarol, not now.It was, after all, his idea that he and Iris spend the weekend alone in the city together, and it was, he supposed, up to her to choose who would mind Nelson.
He knows that the energy is down between them right now and he has a pretty clear idea what the trouble is:she feels neglected, the ro-mance oftheir life together has been subsumed by dailiness, it’s an old story, even the men he sees in business, with whom he almost never has a personal conversation, hint that their own clever wives grumble about the lack ofattention being paid to them, even ifthe wives themselves are in business, making deals, returning calls through the night.And Iris feels isolated, maybe even abandoned up there in Leyden—it cannot help but add to the mix ofIris’s difficulties that she is swimming in a white sea.
And so, without exactly planning it that way, Hampton escorts her on a black tour ofManhattan:lunch at a black-owned, mostly black-frequented restaurant in the theater district, a place oflarge comfortable booths andArt Deco mirrors, where gorgeous black women in black pants and black silk shirts serve them crab cakes and collard greens, and after lunch a cab ride up near Harlem, where Hampton shows Iris a block ofderelict brownstones a developer is in the process ofsnapping up.The developer is looking for investors and he has come to Hampton to help him put together an offering statement, but what Hampton wants to know is ifIris thinks it might make sense for they themselves to put in one hundred thousand dollars, that way they could make a little money and do a little good, it’s always nice when the two can be com-bined.FromAmsterdamAvenue, they go to a newly opened Black Cul-ture Museum, which was inaugurated with some fanfare onAdam Clayton Powell Boulevard a month ago, and which turns out to be not much more than a storefront but has a nice exhibition ofnineteenth-century photographs.The place is filled with people whom one does not normally see in a museum—church ladies dressed like birds ofparadise in their vermilion, chartreuse, and salmon dresses, and wrinkled old men in baggy suits.
After, Iris and Hampton take a taxi all the way down to Jane Street, through crawling, seething, honking Saturday traffic.Hampton, to keep himself from staring at the taxi’s meter, and to make the most ofhis time with Iris, does something that is not exactly his style:he begins to kiss her, right there in the cab, with the Chinese driver undoubtedly spying on them.Iris has always been the one pushing them to be a little cozier with each other in
public, the one sort ofthing that struck Hampton as exhibitionist, distasteful, and, frankly, unsafe—you never knew who would be triggered by the sight oftwoAfrican-Americans kissing.And now, when he is not exactly in the mood for public display but never-theless feeling that a little conjugal vulgarity might be just what the doc-tor ordered, he discovers that he has, alas, been successful in training Iris away from kissing in cabs:her lips barely respond to his, and when he presses them more forcefully against her, she gently shoves him away and looks at him as ifhe were a naughty little boy, or a fool.“I feel a little sick from that lunch,”she says apologetically.“I think the crab might have been a little off.”And then, as ifshe were systematically obliterating the day, like someone knocking the heads offflowers with a walking stick, she says,“I don’t think we should be investing in those apartment houses, Hampton, I really don’t.I think they’re depressing, and all those devel-
opers are going to do is make them suitable for some gullible buppies and I don’t want to be a part ofthat.”
Back at the apartment, Iris looks at the eastern sky;a few clouds are tinged with the reflected red glow ofthe setting sun.The windows ofthe Sheridan Square buildings and, further east, FifthAvenue, blaze irides-cent orange.Below, the cars are suddenly turning on their headlights, the light streaming from them as cool as the moon.Hampton is in the bath-room and has been for several minutes.He has never gone into a bath-room without taking an inordinate amount oftime.She has never asked him what takes him so long, she doesn’t know and has never wanted to know.Maybe he has some disorder he is keeping secret from her.Maybe he just needs to be by himself for fifteen minutes a few times a day.Right now, she is glad for the privacy;she cannot shake that sense ofbeing un-prepared for an examination, or perhaps a cross-examination.
She sees Hampton’s reflection in the window, coming at her, superimposed over the skyline, floating like a ghost.He has taken offhis sweater and hisT-shirt and, unless she is mistaken, he seems to be shim-mying toward her, in a kind ofCalypso rhythm.Iris understands that Hampton, when he needs her, feels vulnerable and somehow trapped be-neath the ice ofhis dignity.Often, he will cover his own desire with a protective irony.She has in the past found it endearing, but now his lit-tle dance seems ludicrous, and a little demeaning.He visits the pleasures ofher body like a tourist who behaves on vacation in a way he never would dream ofat home.And like the tourist who raves about the island hospitality, there is, in Hampton’s adoration ofher, a bit ofcolonial con-descension.She is his refuge from the hard realities oflife.He has de-cided that she is more natural than he, more in tune with the primordial—motherhood, cooking, listening, fellatio, that sort ofthing.
She goes to bed with him;to refuse him this afternoon would be unwise, unthinkable.She feels he is trying to impress her, to renew his claim on her, and, even as it breaks her heart and makes her feel she is the most unfaithful, unworthy woman who ever drew breath, all ofHampton’s exertions cannot dislodge her mind from its secret orbit around her memories ofDaniel.
Each ofHampton’s kisses is not only what it is but what it is not.
She puts one hand on Hampton’s chest, grabs his hip with the other.
She shrinks back from him until he is dislodged and then she turns over, presses her forehead to the mattress, puts her arms out over her head, raises up on her knees.He is covered in perspiration.He is behind her, she is beginning to pick up his personal scent making its way through the layers ofIrish soap and Italian cologne.He is saying her name, low, gut-tural.Then there is a moment’s silence as he aligns himself with her and then she feels him going back into her.She squeezes herselfaway from him, grabs his cock, and then, rocking back, presses the head ofit against her anus.She is relatively dry, but he is slick, oily.His breath catches when he realizes what she is proposing.
“Are you sure?”he whispers.
”Yes.Do it.Just do it.”
He sprawls across her, his weight is crushing.He opens the drawer of his night table and takes out a jar ofsome sort ofcoconut-scented cream.
Her eyes are closed now, she doesn’t want to get involved in the practi-calities.She hears the plastic whisper ofthe lid being unscrewed, and then hears Hampton’s suddenly belabored, overly excited breathing.He scoops some ofthe cream up and then throws the jar onto the floor.He slaps the cream onto her, gruffand impersonal.She can feel the warmth ofhis fingers behind the slimy chill ofthe cream.And then he is astride her again.Whenever they have done this she has imagined her mother walking in.He is finished in moments.
He falls to his side ofthe bed, covers his eyes with his forearm.
”Did I hurt you?”he whispers, not looking at her.
”No.A little.I’m fine.”She is wondering what she will say when he asks her ifshe wants to come, too.But he is not his usual obliging self.
“I feel afraid oflosing you, Iris.”
She is silent.The room has gotten suddenly darker, colder.She scrambles to get under the covers.The weight ofHampton’s body presses the sheet and blankets down on her.
“Should I be?”he asks.He raises himself up on his elbows, looks at her through the corners ofhis eyes.She feels his keen, predatory intelligence.
He ought to have been a lawyer, he loves to come after you with ques-tions.“Is there any reason I should feel as worried as I do?”
“What are you asking me, Hampton?”she manages to say.She has history on her side;he has been suspicious and jealous for the entirety of their marriage, and even before.“Is this why you asked me to come to the city?To ask me thesequestions?”
He is silent.She can feel him retreating, but it doesn’t feel like he’s going veryfar.
The Sleeping Giant is a huge white clapboard hotel, with shuttered win-dows and rickety iron fire escapes.The first time they arrived, just a few weeks into their relationship, it was on one ofthose dark-blue autumn evenings, when the last ofthe sunset outlines every hill.But today, the sky is cement, there will be no sunset, and their original room, which Kate has requested, is not as they remember it.Daniel and Kate stand there, looking at the four-poster bed, which looks noisy and uncomfort-able, and which takes up more than halfthe room’s space, and at the lit-tle secretary desk, and the grim little GE television set on a metal rolling table, and the beige wallpaper with its pattern ofoverly vivid, practically rapacious peonies.Daniel sees the disappointment on Kate’s face.“I think there’s something sort ofnice about this room,”he says.
“It’s changed,”says Kate.
”Well, we’ve all changed.The room’s probably having a hard time recognizingus.”
She feels the generosity ofwhat he is saying and for a moment it draws her to him, but quickly it crosses her mind:he canaffordto be gen-erous, he is that happy, that full oflife.
Now, at the Sleeping Giant, they leave their room, first for the main desk, where Kate uses the fax machine to send her article in to Lorraine, and then on to the Dragon’s Lair, one ofthe hotel’s two bars.It’s a dark room, with old scarred tables and poster-sized photos oftheThree Stooges on the wall.The free happy-hour snacks have a contemporary flair—little chunks ofsesame chicken and fried plantain simmer in the aluminum warming trays—and the music is supplied by a heavy, open-faced young man in a turtleneck sweater singing songs by U2and REM and accompanying himself on the guitar.
“Sit, sit,”Kate says, pointing Daniel toward an empty table.“I’ll get us some drinks.What do you want?A Heineken?”She barely waits for an an-swer.As she hurries toward the bar, she calls to him over her shoulder,“Score us some apps.”She cringes at the sound ofher voice—she sounds to herself like some office flirt.Still, she is glad she is the one talking to the bartender; she doesn’t want Daniel involved in how much she will be drinking.
TheTV above the bar is tuned to a Saturday afternoon football game being played in Florida.The male cheerleaders are tossing the women high into the dark-blue air.The bartender is a man in his sixties, tall and stately, with delicate broken veins in his hollow cheeks and thick auth
or-itative eyebrows.He looks like a New England Protestant patriarch, he should be a county judge, and Kate wonders what wrong turns have brought him to this place, standing behind a noisy bar wearing a red cut-away jacket and a black bow tie.
“I’d like a largeTanqueray martini, no olives, no ice, very dry, and a Heineken,”Kate says.
The bartender narrows his vaporous blue eyes, while his trembling hands, dappled like the hide ofa fawn, worry the silver tops ofthe mix-ers slotted into the inside ofthe bar.“I’m going to have to see some sort ofID,”he says pleasantly.
“Are you serious?”
“A driver’s license, preferably.”
“You’re making my day.”She waits, but the bartender doesn’t move.
“What’s the drinking age in Massachusetts?”she asks.“Forty?”
When Kate gets back to the table, she finds Daniel has struck up a conversation with a couple at an adjoining table.The man, who appears to be about fifty, wears a heavy blue fisherman’s sweater;his short hair is the color ofpewter, and his skin is richly, intensely black.The woman with him, who, as Kate approaches, has reared her head to let out peals ofshrill laughter, is young and white.She wears a short, spangled skirt that Kate thinks would be risky even for a woman with long, slim legs.
Kate simply cannot help thinking this, that the black man might very well be blinded by the woman’s whiteness as well as her youth, and has not yet noticed her stockiness.
“Kate!”Daniel says, with an odd excess ofenthusiasm, the way men do when they’ve been caught at something and are trying to pretend everything is just great.
Kate sits and Daniel makes the introductions.The man’s name is Erick Ayinde;his accent is a mixture ofBritish and something else far more ex-otic, which Kate guesses isAfrican.The woman’s name is Christine Kirk; she speaks softly, carefully, as ifin vigilance against her real voice.
“Erick’s a private detective,”Daniel announces.
A Ship Made of Paper Page 22
