To the Manor Dead

by Sebastian Stuart

  “Let’s have a cuppa joe,” George said, and I could tell from his tone that something was up. He was wearing a FUR IS DEAD T-shirt, a beret set at a jaunty angle, baggy harem pants, some very cool Nikes, and a little bling on his fingers and around his neck. Dude hated attention. George was an emergency room nurse who’d been smart enough to buy a couple of buildings in town years ago. He had eight apartments and two storefronts earning him a tidy income, and these days he only worked when he wanted to. He was pulling forty, bald, chunky, yet somehow handsome, with enormous eyes behind cool angular glasses. Resourceful, tough, and passionate, George had taken me under his wing when I first moved up here and given me endless advice on how to make my shop click. Or at least not clunk.

  Abba’s waitress, Pearl—who had come with the place—brought us two cups of coffee. Pearl was a slow-moving seventy-something with gray hair, gray eyes, gray teeth, and gray skin. No matter what was happening, or how busy the place was, she wore the same vacant, dazed expression—the earth could split open under her feet and it wouldn’t register. As George put it: “Her elevator doesn’t go to the top floor.”

  “Listen, babe, I’m counting on you for Thursday’s town meeting,” George said.

  George was rabid about saving the Hudson Valley from the greedbag developers who wanted to line the riverbank with high-rise condos. Vince Hammer, a Trump wannabe with deep pockets and political pull, was trying to put up a mini-city on eighty acres of Sawyerville riverfront. It would bring in sickening amounts of traffic, raise taxes, obliterate the views, overload the infrastructure, and fuck up the character of the town.

  Hammer had made his money down in the city and decided a few years back that the Hudson Valley was the next hot place. He’d built a mountaintop mansion outside of Woodstock and was spending a lot of time locally, throwing his cheesy, gold-plated weight around. George was in the thick of the fight to stop him.

  “I’ll be there,” I said.

  Just then the lights went out, the place went dim in the reflected rain. Abba came out of the kitchen carrying a cake that had a single candle burning on top.

  “Happy anniversary to you,” she sang—to me.

  George picked up the song, then some of the customers piped in.

  “Happy anniversary, dear Janet. Happy anniversary to you!”

  I grudgingly blew out the candle, everyone applauded, and the lights went on.

  “What the hell was that about?” I said.

  “It’s your one-year anniversary in Sawyerville,” Abba said.

  So it had been a year since I’d closed my practice and left Brooklyn—overwhelmed by my clients’ endless outpouring of heartache and anxiety, my own regret and rage over marrying the Asshole, that long-ago decision that continued to haunt me, and just the whole goddamn jingle-jangle, global-frying, info-wired mishigas of twenty-first century life—and taken my savings, gathered my accumulated junque from the three storage spaces I rented, bought the small brick building that housed my store down and my apartment up, and begun my new life in a river town where I didn’t know a soul.

  Big f’ing deal.

  “This cake is new—pecan-coconut-blackberry,” Abba announced to the house. Everyone morphed into eager little guinea pigs—a new cake from Abba really was a big f’ing deal.

  As the cake was cut, George leaned into me, “So, Abba tells me you got a visit from Lady Livingston this morning.”

  “You know her?”

  “Only by reputation.”

  I took a bite of cake—frosted nirvana, moist to the point of melting, the blackberries a just-tart-enough counterpoint to the rich pecans and coconut. The whole joint was quiet in communal bliss.

  “Abba, this cake is amazing,” George moaned. He was very in touch with his senses. All of them.

  “Not bad,” Abba said. “I better try and get it down before I forget it. Come on back.”

  George and I followed her into the kitchen and sat on stools while she made notes on a file card. Abba never used cookbooks—“that’s copying, not cooking”—so when she had a hit, she rushed to write it down. As she was scribbling, she asked, “So, how did it go with Daphne Livingston?”

  “She wants to sell some stuff. What’s her story?”

  Abba knew all the legend, lore, and lunacy of the Hudson Valley—her clan had been here for a long time. Her great-great granddad worked on the pleasure boats that carried people up the river, out of the city’s heat, in the nineteenth century. The boats docked in the village of Catskill; from there folks would take the railroad up into the cool mountain air. Abba’s ancestor settled in Catskill with his wife, one of the first black families. And even though Abba, who was now in her mid-forties, had been just about everywhere and done just about everything, she ended up back in the valley. She was tall and strong and beefy, with a wide-open face, a gap-toothed smile, and enormous green-brown eyes. She leaned against the counter and took a sip of coffee.

  “Well, the Livingstons used to own a big chunk of the Hudson Valley. They got one of the original land grants from the King of England,” she said. “But like a lot of the valley’s old grandee clans, there’s been a certain, shall we say, deterioration over the generations. Daphne Livingston has lived a life and a half. She was a major beauty, the debutante du jour, dated movie stars and royalty, a Kennedy or two. She painted and wrote poetry, had a few art shows, published a book of poems, was in the thick of the whole society-literary scene down in the city. She was at Capote’s Black and White Ball. Then she moved to London, ran with the Stones, the Beatles, that whole crowd, even acted in a couple of European movies. But she had a few little self-destructive traits, like gin and drugs and nasty men. Then she disappeared, turned up in Morocco years later. From what I’ve heard she got involved with some very nefarious characters down there, we’re talking prostitution, smuggling.”

  Pearl shuffled into the kitchen and handed Abba an order. She moved to the stove, cracked a couple of eggs into a pan, tossed in some fresh herbs, a dollop of mustard, and began to scramble. “Five years ago Eugenia Livingston, the matriarch of the clan, kicked the bucket at age ninety-seven. She was a world-class snob and a world-class bitch, very competitive with her daughter. With her gone, Daphne finally came home to Westward Farm. She was burnt-out and broke, and she’s pretty much been a recluse over in that mansion of hers—I should say hers and her brother’s. Who hate each other. Which is why the place is split in half—right down the middle. Even so, carrying half a spread like that one ain’t cheap. I’d say Daphne is probably hanging on by her fingernails. That’s why she came knocking at your door this a.m.”

  Abba slid the eggs onto a plate, added home fries, avocado slices, a hunk of cornbread, and put the plate on the pass-through. “Order up.”

  “She was scared of something,” I said.

  “Maybe her past is coming back to pay a little uninvited visit,” Abba said. “The past has a way of doing that.”

  “I’m reminded of that every time my herpes breaks out,” George cracked. “But this Livingston saga sounds juicy. Are you going over there?”

  “Tomorrow morning,” I said.

  “Want some company?”

  “I think my first visit should be solo. So, Abba, the house is divided in two?”

  “Yes. Things got very ugly when old lady Livingston kicked. Daphne and Godfrey, that’s her brother, got into a battle royal. The Livingstons are what you call land poor, but we all know what six hundred acres and an old mansion on the Hudson are worth. There was a lot of nasty publicity, charges of alcoholism, incest, insanity, you name it. There were even whispers that old Mrs. Livingston didn’t die of natural causes.”

  “You mean …?” George said.

  “Yes, somebody helped her along. Of course, at ninety-seven it’s hard to tell. But the old gal had the last laugh, her will granted both Daphne and G
odfrey lifetime tenancy in the house, and put a conservation easement on the estate so it can never be broken up and turned into Hideous on the Hill.”

  “Kick ass, Eugenia!” George said.

  “The bottom line is they both have equal claim on Westward Farm, and so they just put up a wall dead center in the house. She stays on her side, he on his.”

  “What’s he like?” I asked.

  “I’ve never clapped eyes on him. He’s reclusive, too, and apparently very eccentric. I understand his household is pretty bizarre. He’s a little younger than Daphne.”

  “Tomorrow should be interesting, but right now I better get back to my shop,” I said. “And please—no more damn cakes.”

  The rain was still coming down hard. I dashed across the street—a teenage girl was huddled in the shop doorway, her face almost hidden under the hood of her pink plastic raincoat.

  She pointed to the Help Wanted sign I had stuck in the window.

  “Come on in.”

  She followed me into the store and the first thing I noticed was her limp—one leg was a little shorter than the other. The cheap rain slicker was several sizes too small; her bony wrists stuck out and made her look like she was about eight years old. She had dark hair, a closed wary face, and stooped, guarded body language. She looked about as right for retail as I was for the NFL.

  “I’m Janet,” I said, sitting behind my desk. “Have a seat.”

  She perched on the edge of a straight-backed chair.

  “I’m … Josie.” Her voice was halting, almost apologetic; she didn’t meet my eye.

  “No last name?”

  She hesitated, before mumbling, “Alvarez.”

  “All right, Josie Alvarez, tell me a little about yourself.”

  She noticed Bub, sitting on his swinging perch. Her eyes lit up for a second, just a second.

  “I need a job.”

  “That’s it?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, why do you think this would be a good job for you?”

  “Because it pays money.”

  “That’s an honest answer.”

  “I am honest. Dependable.”

  “Are you from Sawyerville?”

  Josie nodded.

  “You in high school?”

  She shook her head.

  “You finished?”

  “I dropped out.”

  “You live with your family?”

  Her mouth tightened, she looked down, took a shallow breath, nodded.

  “Tell me more: Mom, Dad, brothers, sisters?”

  “My mother and her boyfriend and their baby.”

  I knew this story: Josie was the odd one out, the Mom’s older kid who had no place in the new family. But there was more here, something darker. And where did the limp come from?

  “You know anything about old stuff?”

  Josie shook her head.

  She looked me in the eye for the first time—I saw a little kid adrift in a big sea.

  All right, Janet, end the interview, send her on her way. She’s in big trouble, something nasty is happening at home, she needs so much more than a job, so much more than you could possibly give her. The last thing your shop—or your life—needs is some messed-up teenager.

  “Listen, Josie, I’m not sure this is the right job for you.”

  Josie leaned forward in her chair and said, “I’m a fast learner.”

  “I’m sure you are, but I just don’t think this is a good match.”

  “Give me one day to prove myself,” she said with surprising vehemence.

  Sputnik placed his snout on my thigh. I reached down and petted the little mutt. Jealous, Bub flew over and took his perch on Sputnik’s rump. I scratched his head and he puffed out his chest.

  I took a deep breath. “All right, Josie, I’ll give you a one-day trial run.”

  “Thank you.”

  Goddamn it.

  The weather was still crummy the next day—a high gray sky, limp drizzle—but I still got a charge driving over the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge and looking down at the Hudson, so wide and slow that it looked more like a lake, the hills on either side dotted with big houses and small towns, cement plants and power lines. I’d discovered the area during my sixteenth summer, when I’d fallen madly in love with a songwriter/poet/lunatic twice my age whom I’d met in Washington Square Park, and was convinced was an undiscovered genius. Jeremy rented a shack in Athens, a tiny riverbank hamlet, and I spent that steamy summer screwing on a futon, listening to Jeremy compose songs I slowly came to realize were trite and grating, making him Bustelo coffee using a paper towel for a filter, rolling him Bugler cigarettes, and generally being a slave to a schmuck.

  Ah, youth.

  Not that my judgment got much better with age—witness the Asshole.

  But in spite of Jeremy, the valley had gotten to me—the quirky towns, the history, the stone houses, the river, the lighthouses, swimming in cool Catskills creeks. I was raised—if you want to call it that—on the streets of the East Village. It’s ironic how provincial a city kid can be, the valley that summer was a wonderland, a visual orgasm, a new world. I felt like I could breathe up here, but it wasn’t all pristine and prissy and countrified—you know, women in straw hats buying twelve-dollar jars of jam—there were all kinds of people, it was funky and real.

  I reached the east side of the river, turned up River Road, and suddenly I was in one of those Jane Austen movies—old stone walls, sweeping fields, fat cows on fancy farms, gingerbread gothic cottages, gatehouses of the old estates.

  I came to a stone wall that looked a little shabucka—stones had tumbled loose, lay mossy and forlorn. The field beyond was a choppy sea of high grass and saplings. The wall ended at a drive flanked by two nicked-up brick pillars; only one of them still had its stone urn on top. There was a worn bronze sign on one of the columns: Westward Farm.

  I turned down the drive, which snaked spookily between tall trees, with gnarly, overgrown fields on either side—through the dank drizzle I saw an abandoned tractor, a crumbling kennel, creepy little copses of trees that looked like sinister men huddling to hatch evil plots. The only thing missing was Julie Andrews bursting forth, arms spread, singing her joyful British brains out.

  The drive went on for about a half mile, took a little turn and—whoa, mama—there sat a house that seemed to stretch for a couple of city blocks. Set on the crest of a lawn that rolled down to the river, it was grand and stately as all get-out—until you noticed the peeling paint, missing shutters, and cracked windows. There was a circular parking court in front, with a defunct fountain in the middle of it, and an assortment of old cars spread around, including Daphne’s Mercedes.

  I parked my Camry and got out.

  The mansion’s front door was framed by a columned portico. Too bad it was inaccessible, covered with crumbling terra cotta pots, rusted urns, chipped statuary, and other detritus of a good garden gone bad. Remembering what Daphne had told me, I looked to the left—there was a row of tall windows, one of which had been turned into a makeshift door by the crew from This Old Trailer. I walked over—it was ajar and I stepped inside.

  I was in a huge high-ceilinged parlor filled with the furniture, art, and rugs that Daphne had showed me. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust, highlighted with bird droppings, empty wine bottles, overflowing ashtrays, yellowing newspapers. The walls and ceiling were water-stained and sported spots of bubbling, crumbling plaster.

  Daphne had said she’d probably be upstairs in her bedroom, so I walked through an archway on the right that led into the main hall. The two-story room was split in half by unfinished drywall. The wall began in the dead middle of the front door and continued right up the Gone With the Wind-y staircase. From the other side of the wall I could h
ear faint echoes of Indian music—sitars and cymbals and chanting.

  I started up Daphne’s side of the stairway, which curved around and led to an open landing, also cut off from the other side of the house by the drywall.

  “Daphne?” I called.

  No answer. I set out in search of Daphne’s bedroom. The rooms I passed were filled with massive pieces of furniture covered with white sheets that lay on them like exhausted ghosts. Everything was dirty and disheveled, there was so much dust in the air I could taste it, I heard critters scurrying around inside the walls. This was what made my work so cool—peeking into other people’s lives. I’d seen some pretty bizarre scenes, but Westward Farm was number one with a bullet.

  “Daphne?”

  No answer. I came to the end of the corridor and there was her bedroom. It was an enormous corner room with windows facing the river and a carved sleigh bed. I poked my head in.

  “Daphne, are you here? It’s Janet, Janet Petrocelli.”

  Nothing. I stepped into the room. Unlike the rest of the house, it looked inhabited. There was a tiny makeshift kitchen—hotplate, half fridge, microwave—in one corner, just outside the open bathroom door. Clothes were strewn around, more empty wine bottles everywhere. The bed was unmade, the sheets grimy and gray, and there was an indent on the mattress that told me Daphne spent a good part of her life there. The room had a peculiar smell—musty, overlain with dirty linen, ancient violet sachets, and something earthy and dank, almost like decaying leaves. I moved closer to the bed—the Times Sunday magazine was open to the crossword puzzle and there was a tray that held a coffee mug and a small plate with a half-eaten piece of toast. I felt the mug—did it still hold a faint trace of warmth?

  I peered into the bathroom: clawfoot tub, octagonal floor tiles, pedestal sink, all gritty and mucky.

  But no sign of Daphne.

  Back outside, I made a decision: go ask the hated brother if he had seen his hated sister. Maybe they’d made up over a case of wine or two. I walked down to the other end of the house, where another graceful old window had been turned into another sloppy door. I knocked. No answer. Since the house was bigger than a museum, and there was that Indian music playing somewhere in the far reaches, they probably didn’t hear me.