To the Manor Dead

by Sebastian Stuart

  I opened the door and stuck my head inside. It was a cavernous room that mirrored the one on Daphne’s side, except most of the incredible old furniture was gone, replaced with stuff that looked like Salvation Army rejects. A couple of beat-up plaid couches faced a massive flat-screen television, and a coffee table was strewn with magazines, tortilla chips, soda cans, candy.

  “Hello?” I said.

  Just then a little girl of around three, wearing a flimsy sundress, rushed into the room in a state of fevered flight. Without noticing me she darted behind a sofa, in hiding.

  She was followed, a few beats later, by a woman in her mid-twenties, eating a Ring Ding and smoking a cigarette. She didn’t notice me either. “Where’s my little Rodent?” she called.

  “I didn’t see a thing,” I said.

  The woman turned to me. She was wearing a short shift, would have been pretty with a little more meat on her bones, had long brown hair and enormous blue eyes that looked oddly blank. She sat on the edge of an armchair, crossed her legs, took a puff of her cigarette, and asked, “Who’re you?”

  “Janet Petrocelli, I have an appointment with Daphne Livingston.”

  She considered this for a moment, in a vacant sort of way. “Daphne’s my aunt,” she said, as if reminding herself. She took a bite of her Ring Ding and raised her voice. “Mmmm, this Ring Ding is soooooo good!” She cocked an ear. “This is the best damn Ring Ding I have ever eaten.”

  There was a pause and finally the little girl crawled out from behind the sofa.

  “I want Ring Ding, Mommy.”

  “Not till you eat your Pizza Pocket,” Mom said.

  The girl grimaced. “Do I have to?”

  “No … unless you want a Ring Ding.”

  The girl exhaled in resigned exasperation and stomped off in the direction she had come. Mom said, “That’s my Rodent,” and followed the child.

  My first glimpse of the parenting habits of the old aristocracy. I checked out the magazines on the coffee table—Yoga Journal and National Enquirer, Wrestling World and Mother Jones. Someone had a major Dots addiction—there were at least half-a-dozen Costco-sized boxes of the rubbery candy. There was a standing hookah beside the table.

  A woman of around fifty walked into the room. She was naked. She was also pretty broad and fleshy—you might call her layered—and completely nonchalant. Once I got over my shock (if nudity is so natural, why is it always so jarring?), I thought her body looked sort of beautiful, in an I-am-what-I-am kind of way.

  “Hi,” she said casually. She sat on a couch and fired up the hookah. She took a deep toke and then held out the hose to me. “Hit?” she asked in a squeaky pothead-holding-it-in voice.

  I shook my head.

  She exhaled.

  “You sure? It’s primo shit, Humboldt County. Our dealer Fed-Exed it in.”

  “Maybe later.”

  She shrugged, picked up the remote, clicked on the television and found a frenetic Spanish-language game show that featured neon costumes, buxom women, lots of music and screeching, and a confetti machine. She howled with laughter, took another toke, grabbed a box of Dots, and then turned to me with a friendly smile.

  “I’m Maggie.”

  “Janet.”

  “Dot?”

  “Nah, I’ve got bridgework.”

  “I’ve never played bridge.”

  “Me neither.”

  “I used to read Tarot,” she said wistfully. Then she brightened. “You know what, I’m going to read Tarot again … now where did I put my cards?”

  She got up and began to root around the room—I was treated, when she leaned over, to several wide-screen views of her bahunkus. After a slow-motion examination of a desk drawer—she seemed to find everything in it mesmerizing, particularly a paperclip—she stood up and said, “I forgot what I’m looking for.”

  “Tarot cards.”

  “Ah, fuck it,” she said, and sat back down. “What were we talking about?”

  “We ranged around.”

  “I like you,” Maggie said, drawing her feet up under her, curling into the sofa. She had a full face, frizzy hair, and small eyes that twinkled. She took another hit from the hookah and then switched the remote to an animal show that featured some weird nocturnal marsupial scurrying around in infrared light. “Wow,” she said, “it’d be cute to have one of those.”

  “It would.”

  “I bet you could get one on the Internet. I got a seahorse on the Internet, but it arrived dead.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I froze it, but then it cracked in two when I touched it.”

  “Listen, I’m looking for Daphne, Daphne Livingston.”

  “Aunt Daf?”

  “Yes.”

  “Poor Aunt Daf.”

  “Are you a relative?”

  “What is this, twenty questions?” She looked at me for a second with a wary, challenging expression, then popped a Dot in her mouth and switched the remote to a home shopping network where two bizarro-faced women were selling handbags covered with feathers and bangles. Maggie was rapt for a minute, and then switched back to her Spanish-language game show, which cheered her right up. “I’m the housekeeper,” she said.

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, I hold this place together. Without me, it would all go to shit.”

  No doubt.

  “I go way back. My grandfather was the head groundskeeper. So was my Dad. I lived in the old staff house. But then Godfrey burned it down for the insurance money … I mean there was a fire, and I moved in here. Let me give you two cents of advice: don’t mention Aunt Daf to anyone on this side of the wall. Godfrey hates her—says he’d like to kill her, chop her up, puree her in the blender, drink her, and then shit her out.” She leaned in to me and dropped her voice. “See, when Aunt Daf kicks Godfrey gets everything. The land, the house, the contents. There’s paintings and whatnot over there that would make your head explode. We’re talking mucho dinero.” She leaned back and shook her hair in a proprietary way. “I get a raise when that happens. Course, that wouldn’t be hard, since I haven’t been paid in three years!” She roared with laughter and her whole body shook, every last layer.

  “Where is Godfrey?”

  “From the sounds of that music, he’s meditating. You might want to wait, he goes postal when people disturb his meditation. Are you a friend of Aunt Daf’s?”

  I wasn’t sure mentioning the nature of my nascent relationship with Daphne would be too smart—I didn’t want to end up in that blender myself. “Yes, we’re friends.”

  “Don’t tell Godfrey this, but I like Aunt Daf, she’s very … tolerant. Some people get all high and mighty about me being a nudist, the Central Hudson guy had the nerve to lodge a complaint—asshole. If I want to sun my koochie, it’s my business. Aunt Daf is totally cool with it.”

  “I … met a little girl, and her mother, just a few minutes ago. Who are they?”

  “You’re not from DSS, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Cross your heart?”

  “Cross my heart.”

  “That’s Becky, Godfrey’s daughter. She moved back home about a year ago … or maybe it was two years ago. Becky’s a pretty girl but she’s a little s-l-o-w, if you get my drift. She ran away to Kansas City. I mean, how lame-ass is that? Anyway, she met a crystal meth dealer in an all-night laundromat and shacked up with him way the hell out in the cornfields and when his meth factory exploded and blew him into a trillion little pieces, she came home. Meth kills brain cells, you know.” She took another hit from the hookah. “Sure you don’t want a toke?”

  “No, thanks. And … Rodent … is her daughter?”

  “Isn’t that Rodent the cutest little tidbit?”

  “She is pretty cute.”r />
  “Can you imagine—a meth dealer’s kid living at Westward Farm? Old Lady Livingston would croak. Course she’s already dead!” Then she roared again and switched the remote to a rock video and started to dance along from her seat, raising her arms and shaking her upper body in a joyous jiggle-fest. Then she stopped suddenly and looked at me intently. “Who’re you again?”

  Just as I opened my mouth to refresh the sieve that was her memory, a young woman in her mid-twenties walked in from outside. She looked casual but pulled together in slacks and sweater, carrying a book bag. She and Maggie exchanged a look of mutual antipathy.

  “Hello … Claire Livingston,” she said to me, extending her hand.

  “Janet Petrocelli.”

  “She’s looking for Aunt Daf,” Maggie said.

  Claire looked concerned. “Aunt Daphne lives in the south wing.”

  “I couldn’t find her over there, so I thought I’d check here.”

  “Daphne doesn’t come over to the north wing. Can we talk a minute?” Claire asked.

  I nodded.

  “How about a cup of coffee?”

  “Sounds good.”

  As she led me out of the room, Maggie called out, “I’ve got some mac ‘n’ cheese in the oven, give it a check-see, whudya?”

  I followed Claire down a long hallway, through a large pantry lined with glass-fronted cabinets, and into a vast kitchen that looked like Katrina’s twin sister had just blown through—sinks piled high with dirty dishes, food strewn around, open cabinets, grotty old pots on the stoves, a slightly rancid, moldy smell. One counter was taken up by an armada of bottles, vials, canisters of vitamins, protein powders, herbal boosters. There was a small television blaring, but there was so much snow the picture was barely visible. Claire switched it off.

  “First of all, I want to apologize for this household,” she said.

  “There’s no need.”

  “Yes, there is. Retarded monkeys wouldn’t live like this—but Livingstons would. I really should attack it all, but it’s just so overwhelming, and besides: a) Dad and Becky and Maggie like living this way, and b) if I did clean it up, two days later it would be right back to this.” She gestured in disgust. “I do, however, keep my corner clean.”

  There was one spotless countertop with a coffeemaker. Claire got a bag of coffee from a freezer.

  “I’m worried about Aunt Daphne,” she said as she poured coffee into a brown-paper filter. “She’s always been profoundly self-destructive, but things seem to have spun completely out of control. And she seems frightened, somehow.”

  “Yeah, I sensed that.”

  “Since I’ve been back, I’ve been trying to negotiate a rapprochement between her and dad, but it’s hopeless, they just loathe each other.”

  “You don’t live here?”

  “Oh, good God, no. I’ve only been back for a couple of months and I’m leaving as soon as I can. I’ve lived in Seattle for six years and, for obvious reasons, come home as rarely as possible. But I’m teaching a course in American history up at Bard this semester. It’s just a one-semester fill-in, but I’m starting my career and Bard is a nice notch in my belt. Another reason I took the job is so that I could check up on my family, or what’s left of it. It’s been very depressing. Dad still acts like Napoleon on St. Helena, Becky—who is my twin by the way—has clearly inherited the Livingston gene for what I will kindly call eccentricity, and I just learned yesterday that my father wants to adopt Maggie, which would make her my sister. The mind boggles. Speaking of minds, if I stay here a day longer than I have to, I’ll lose mine.” She blew out air, and gave me an abashed smile. “I’m sorry to unload on you.”

  “Hey, we all need to vent sometimes.”

  “Thanks. You’re the first rational person I’ve met in this house. I’ve just had it up to here, and I’m too embarrassed to discuss this with any of my colleagues at Bard. So, how do you know Aunt Daf?”

  “I have a small shop, antiques and whatnot, over in Sawyerville. Your aunt came in. She wants me to help her sell some of her things.”

  Something flashed across Claire’s face—surprise, annoyance, rage? But she quickly recovered.

  “Well, she certainly has a lot of things to sell. My father’s Livingston bounty is pretty much long gone,” she said with a bitter edge.

  There was the sound of footfalls bounding down a back staircase that opened into the kitchen.

  “Ah, here comes paterfamilias now,” Claire said.

  Godfrey blew into the kitchen—tall, lean, bursting with energy. The guy was a pretty amazing specimen—a full head of thick black hair pulled into a ponytail, glowing skin, clear blue eyes, a taut, toned body. He was wearing khaki shorts, a loose oxford shirt, and looked about twenty years younger than the sixty-something he had to be.

  “Goooood morning!” he said cheerily.

  “Hi, Dad,” Claire managed. “This is Janet.”

  He fixed those limpid blue eyes on me. “Godfrey Livingston, what a pleasure,” he said, smiling. He was missing a tooth on the upper left.

  Then Godfrey beelined over to the health-food counter and started to spoon odd-colored powders and potions into that infamous blender. This was a serious ritual and he went about it with religious concentration.

  “Janet is a friend of Aunt Daf’s,” Claire said.

  Godfrey’s lithe body tensed momentarily, and then he turned to me and asked, “How’s my sister doing?”

  “I’m not sure. I can’t find her.”

  “She often goes for long walks, especially in this weather. She’s always loved rainy days, since we were children.” He sliced a banana into the blender. “I love Daphne. What’s happened to her fills me with a sadness that is cosmic, almost too much to bear.” He went to the fridge and got out organic eggs and soymilk. He cracked an egg into the blender. “I’ve tried to reach out to her, to meditate with her, stretch with her, sit with her, be with her. But she won’t open up to me. She won’t let me in.”

  Claire handed me a mug of coffee—it came with a little roll of her eyes.

  “Her rejection has been very painful. She won’t acknowledge my essential self. She won’t even look at my Map of the Unknown World.”

  Claire grimaced.

  “Your map of what?” I asked.

  “The Unknown World.”

  Godfrey turned on the blender, and as it whirled he did a yoga-pretzel thing—one leg up in back, arm back to grab it, opposite arm out. All he needed was a little salt. He closed his eyes, got all ethereal—probably communicating with the unknown world.

  “Dad’s been working on his map since I was seven,” Claire explained. “He started it, coincidently, the summer my mother left him and moved to the Australian outback.”

  Godfrey released the pretzel and turned off the blender. “Claire thinks her father is a kook,” he said, pouring his greenish concoction into a large glass. “In fact, my Map of the Unknown World is going to make me famous and rich and restore the Livingston name to the glory it once knew. Not that I care about fame or any other material manifestations.” He took a big sip and when he put down the glass he was sporting a fat green moustache. Cute look. “Now, I must get to work. When you find my sister, please tell her that my door is always open … my soul is always open.”

  Godfrey bounded back up from whence he had come.

  “I never should have come back here,” Claire said, her jaw tense. “My mother knew what she was doing. That man is a narcissistic, deluded, sociopathic asshole. I’ve been here for a month and he hasn’t even asked me what subject I’m teaching.”

  “Oh damn, the mac ‘n’ cheese,” I remembered.

  “There’s no fucking mac ‘n’ cheese!” Claire wailed, racing around and violently throwing open the doors of three ovens. Then she plopped into a chair a
nd began to cry.

  I’d walked into the middle of something deep and dark, intense and intractable. The worst part was that I found it seductive. If I was still in practice and had a few years to work with Claire, I think we could have come to understand her family and her place in it, could have untangled some of the mess, at least partially freed her. I was sure that she came back to Westward Farm not for her father or her sister, but for herself—like so many children with narcissistic, unavailable parents, she kept going back to the well, unable to accept the fact that it was dry.

  Janet, cool it! You came here for antiques! The Claire Livingstons of the world are no longer your responsibility.

  But I couldn’t stop myself, damn it.

  I walked over and put a hand on her shoulder. “Why don’t you see if the college has some housing for you. And maybe check Craigslist.”

  Claire looked up at me and managed a quivery, embarrassed smile. She got up and grabbed a paper towel, blew her nose and gulped some air. “That’s a good idea.”

  “Well, I should be heading out.”

  “When you do find Aunt Daphne, please give her my love.”

  It was still drizzling, a gentle drizzle, but it felt good to be out in the open air. It always does.

  I made a quick recheck of Daphne’s digs. No sign of her. Her car was still in the drive; she was probably out for that walk. I headed around the side of the house. The view from the crest of the hill was fantastic—the river, Sawyerville on the far bank, the Catskills rising up in the distance. I realized I was dead opposite the spot where Vince Hammer wanted to build his mini-city. Not only would his plan fuck up Sawyerville, it would screw up a lot of views on this side of the river.

  From where I was standing, there was a path that led down to an overgrown formal garden, and beyond that to some kind of folly or summerhouse. Even if I didn’t find Daphne, I’d get to walk and clear my head.