The Beggar's Pawn

by John L'Heureux

  “Poor Will,” Cloris said. “I feel bad for him.”

  “Not to worry. Will is a born scholar. He still has Yeats. And maybe Daphne.”

  “But he’s walking the dog while we’re shopping for an engagement ring.”

  “Will likes the dog.”

  “It’s a sweet dog. But still . . .”

  “Think of your ring. We’ve got to get you something fabulous.”

  “But all this money! Perhaps we shouldn’t.”

  “There’s always money. Everyone has money.”

  “So we’re off to Gleim?”

  “Gleim is different to Shreve. You’ll love it.”

  “Different to. You’re the sweetest man.” She kissed his cheek.

  They had found nothing that would do in Gleim until, on their way out, they stopped at a desolate tray of estate jewelry and in the center of the tray discovered—instantly and together—the perfect ring. It was a triple band of diamonds, the stones graduated in size, and on Cloris’s finger the ring seemed a slash of light in many soft, alluring colors.

  Two years and maybe more, Sedge said to himself, and to Cloris he said, “I think this is you.”

  Cloris, a dedicated romantic, said, “This is us.”

  The magic moment was not at all spoiled when Sedge had to shuffle through his credit cards for the one that was not overdrawn. He found it and happily charged another ten thousand dollars on American Express.

  He slipped the ring on her finger and, her palm against his heart, she gave him a small, public kiss. No matter. They would spend the next four hours in the bridal suite of the Stanford Park Hotel.

  * * *

  —

  CLAIRE WAS ASTONISHED as she and Reginald came out of the Stanford Park Hotel to see Sedge and Cloris checking in.

  “This is where we greet one another as old friends,” Claire said, “instead of pretending we’ve never met. California is different to England.” She gave Cloris her frank smile, an offer of goodwill. After all, Cloris might well be the next sister-in-law.

  “You’re being terribly nice about this,” Cloris said. “It’s embarrassing.”

  “Life’s embarrassing. You’ve got to face it head-on.”

  “I love Americans. You’re all so uncomplicated.”

  “Frankly . . .” Claire said, but decided not to go on.

  The two men shuffled back and forth, uncomfortable.

  “Sedge,” Reginald said.

  “Reginald,” Sedge said.

  “Your room is ready,” the desk clerk said, amused, and not the least bit uncomfortable.

  * * *

  —

  MAGGIE AND DAVID were alone at last. The doctor had made his promised visit, the nurse had stopped by to make sure the doctor had visited as promised, the giddy orderly had come in with his plate of pills, and now there was peace and a little privacy.

  Maggie sat on the side of the bed and laid her head on the pillow next to his. “My sweetheart,” she whispered. “How are you? In yourself.”

  “Terrified,” he said. “But I still have you.”

  She gave him a gentle kiss.

  “I’ve been thinking,” he said.

  “I know,” she said.

  “I’ve been thinking about my atheism. I think it indicates a closed mind. I’m considering the possibility of agnosticism.”

  “It’s the TIA talking.”

  “Probably. But I’m serious. If you don’t believe in God, why get so excited about him. Or her. Or it. Would you love me more if I were an agnostic?”

  “I love you exactly as you are. You don’t have to give up atheism for me.”

  “I believe in you and that’s enough.” He pulled her closer.

  “I adore you,” she said.

  She snuggled up against him and kissed his ear. The hairs in it needed trimming. There was always something.

  “We’ll have a lovely day,” she said. “Everything is wonderful here at the hospital.”

  So they had lunch together and took a long nap and then she went to the cafeteria and brought back hot fudge sundaes for dinner. It was the hospital, yes, but they were together and it was a kind of paradise.

  Now if only the children would leave.

  23.

  David would be coming home any day now and Maggie couldn’t wait. She had the weekly housecleaner in for an extra session and she had stocked the freezer with David’s butter pecan ice cream and she had picked up his prescriptions for Plavix and Vytorin. She was all ready, if only the children would decide to leave, she said.

  “After all, we’re old people now. We can’t be running a hotel for the insane at our age. We’re approaching eighty.”

  “We’re seventy-four. We just feel eighty.”

  “And I look eighty.”

  “You look beautiful. Send them all home.”

  Maggie had asked the family not to visit the hospital today so that she and David could be alone to plan his convalescence.

  “Where did we go wrong?” she said. It was not a question. “Will always seemed the perfect son.”

  “They’re all perfect for a while and then suddenly they’re not.”

  “We did everything we could. Did we?”

  “Send them all home. The perfect with the imperfect.”

  “They love us, in their way.”

  In fact they were all eager to be gone. Claire had run out of good times with Reginald and longed once again for the creative chaos of the repertory theater. Sedge wanted only to be alone with Cloris. And the Perfect Son was just waiting for the proper moment to say goodbye to his father and his mother and his former fiancée since Cloris was now so dizzily in love with Sedge. They were planning an autumn wedding.

  * * *

  —

  THEY WERE GATHERED in the living room on the night before David’s return home. Dinner had been civil enough. Claire had restrained her need to be frank and Will remained too numb to express his fury and dismay. Sedge and Cloris sat side by side on the love seat, her little hand in his.

  Maggie had put out drinks for anybody who wanted a nightcap but nobody was interested. There was a lot of silence in the room.

  “Blessed quiet,” Maggie said. “What a relief.”

  “It’s gonna be a great two years.” Sedge tossed his head from side to side, shaking out his black curls. “This is a promise.”

  “Two years for starters,” Cloris said.

  “Good luck with that,” Claire said. “They may be the longest two years of your life.”

  “I’m the exception,” Cloris said. “The curse won’t work on the Brits. Actually.”

  “I wonder when Daphne will let me back in the house,” Will said to no one in particular. “I miss the girls.”

  “Ek-chu-ally,” Claire said.

  Dickens was lying at Maggie’s feet. He gave a great sigh.

  “This is surreal,” Maggie said. “I wish your father was here.” No one responded so she went on. “I sometimes think I’ve gone mad and am just hallucinating about the lives of my children, that none of this could really be happening. I think back to when you were little and what mattered most to us, to David and me, was your health and your happiness. And here you are now in your forties, scattered all over the face of the earth and utterly miserable, with all these odd men and women coming and going in your lives. You need a chart to remember who’s married to whom. You were all so sweet as children and look what you’ve grown up to be. It’s awful.”

  “That’s typical Maggie,” Claire said to Cloris. “You’ll get to see a lot more of this in your two years in the family. She hates us. She doesn’t hate you yet because she doesn’t know you yet—actually—but give her time and you’ll see, you’ll see.” She got up and poured herself a scotch and water.

  “I don’t think we�
�ve turned out so bad,” Sedge said. “We’ve all got good jobs and we lead responsible lives and for the most part we don’t drink. I just happen to get married a lot.”

  “I don’t,” Will said. “I was married only once and I’m going back to it. To Daphne. If she’ll have me.”

  “Of course she’ll have you,” Cloris said. “Daphne is a lovely woman. Besides, she’s meant to be married to an academic. She’s that kind of woman. I’m not. Thank God I discovered that before it was too late.”

  “Thank God I discovered you,” Sedge said. “Late or not.” He lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles one by one.

  “I may vomit,” Claire said. “Does anyone else need a drink?”

  No one needed a drink. Claire shrugged and clinked the ice in her glass.

  “I think of little Iris and how she’s being raised in an insane family and how smart and ladylike she is and I wonder if it’s even possible to know how to raise a family today,” Maggie said. “Good children grow up to be criminals and the ones who are neglected turn out to be good. It’s a mystery. Now take Iris. She has Reginald for a father and . . .”

  “Reginald is a shit,” Claire said. “To be absolutely frank.”

  They all turned to her, expecting more.

  “What?” Claire said.

  “Well, tell us,” Maggie said. “Does this mean the thing between you is a thing of the past?”

  “He’s writing about us. He’s ditched his philosophical novel and he’s writing an academic satire. My guess is that he’s writing about you. Us.”

  “An academic satire?” Will asked. “He’ll be up against David Lodge and he won’t stand a chance.”

  “I’m sure there’s nothing sufficiently interesting about us to put in a novel,” Maggie said, and then she thought of Sedge and Cloris and the two-year curse. “A short story, perhaps, but not a novel.”

  “Well, you may feel different when you see it.” Claire did not mention where Reginald had gotten his information.

  “I doubt we’ll ever see it,” Maggie said. “He’s not the publishing type.”

  “Meaning?”

  “He’ll never finish anything. Just look at him.” And she dismissed the topic altogether as too silly to think about. “What worries me is Iris. She’s smart and loving and a perfect little child despite the mother and father.”

  “Has she written you and asked to borrow money?”

  “Claire! What a thing to say!”

  “Well, has she? Because if she hasn’t already, she will. Reg is determined.”

  “Determined to do what?”

  “To use Iris to get at your money.”

  “But we have no money to loan.” Maggie bit her tongue.

  “You do have money. You’re just not loaning it. At least not to Reginald.”

  “Reginald has borrowed money in the past, but I’m sure he would never put his daughter in that kind of position.”

  “He feels the whole world has conspired against him and he wants payback.”

  “I didn’t think he cared about payback.” Maggie had still not told David that Reginald returned only two of the four hundred dollars he’d borrowed. “Anyway we’ve solved that problem,” she said.

  “What problem?”

  “Reginald borrowing money.”

  “Forget the money. He’s borrowing your lives.”

  “What are you talking about, Claire?”

  “The book. The book he’s writing.”

  “Oh, that. I’ve already told you. There’ll never be a book. Now can we talk about something else? Can we talk about your father, who’ll be coming home tomorrow? Could we give some thought to that?”

  Everybody fell to thinking about David.

  “He’s still awfully frail, I think,” Will said. “Having a stroke reminds you that you’re finite and you can lose everything in a second and have nowhere to turn.” He looked over at Cloris and Sedge. “As if we need reminding.”

  “He’s still got a lot of life in him,” Claire said. “A lot of meanness.”

  “Claire! How can you? Your father loves you so.”

  “He can’t wait until we all go,” Claire said.

  “We can’t wait until we all go,” Will said.

  Everybody looked at him.

  “I’m going to go pack,” Claire said.

  “I’m already packed,” Will said.

  Sedge and Cloris, caught up in their romance, said nothing.

  Maggie looked around at their tired faces. Only her sense of obligation kept this family together. She found herself thinking, Go! Just go! but like the good mother she considered herself to be, she said, “He’ll miss you all. But he does need his rest.”

  * * *

  —

  DAVID RETURNED HOME the next morning and, while the whole family was there to welcome him back, they had all gone their separate ways by noon. David and Maggie and Dickens were at peace at last.

  Iris stopped by to visit that afternoon, and that evening they found a message.

  Dear Professor and Mrs. Holliss:

  It was lovely to visit you this afternoon and to see Prof. Holliss feeling well again. I missed visiting him during his illness and I missed our reading together.

  I’m writing this email at my father’s dictation. He wants you to know this request is from him. Could he please borrow five hundred dollars? The need is urgent or he would not be asking for a loan. He says you will understand this.

  He will stop by tomorrow afternoon.

  Your friend, Iris

  And so the time had come to say, “Here. You can regard this as a loan or, if you prefer, as a gift you need never pay back. But however you regard it, this is the last of the money.”

  It was David’s first unpleasant obligation since his stroke and he discharged it firmly and kindly and in the tone of one who traffics in immutable truths. He was clear. He was forceful. And Reginald understood.

  PART FOUR

  24.

  By the fall of the year, in September 2010, terrorism had moved from the great world of international intrigue to the high schools, to the colleges, to the limitless resources of the web. Terrorism begins in fear and is impelled by rage and in the fall of the year 2010 it found its domestic outlet in Facebook, YouTube, and the persecution of children. Torture, murder, suicides filled the news in Fairfax County and in the borough of Manhattan, in South Hadley High School and in Rutgers University, and it thrummed and buzzed through the great cloud of unknowing that was the internet.

  The source of terror at the Parker house was money. There was the great need for it, the desire to possess it, and any act to get it seemed to Reginald, in his desperation, to be legitimate and good. He could think of nothing else. He had the right, the inalienable right, to his grandmother’s money. And now she had left him nothing, or nearly nothing.

  Just before her painless passing, Reginald’s grandmother had amended her will. Reginald’s mother inherited lifetime use of the house in Hillsborough and Reginald inherited the amount of one year’s rent, to be paid out monthly . . . which, he noted, made it impossible for him to contest her will. At the end his grandmother died knowing she had provided for her own, deserving or not.

  To Reginald, however, the year’s rent was nothing. She had always provided rent, so she owed him that much at least; and not just rent for one year but for every year for the rest of his life. Helen’s pitiful Walmart salary kept them in food and clothes, more or less, but Iris needed her own computer and there were books to buy and eventually she would have to go to college. It crossed his mind that the Hollisses might be willing to pay her college tuition, but he reflected that with any luck the Hollisses would be long dead by then. Still, he reminded himself, they, too, would be leaving money. And why not leave it to Iris instead of to that bunch of losers they had for children
? It was the vaguest hope and, on reflection, he recognized that they hated him too much to include his daughter in their will. The encounter with them over the “final” loan of five hundred dollars had told him all he needed to know about their sense of justice. He could have the money, he could keep it, they said, but don’t ask for any more . . . ever . . . again.

  He had written Claire about the humiliating money scene but she had not answered. She had been all interest and enthusiasm when she was feeding him stories about how screwed up the family was, but she lost her perverse enthusiasm as soon as she guessed that he intended to write not about his family, as he had said, but about hers. And more worrisome still, she was going to be one of the characters. He was disappointed at her bourgeois thinking. Most people would be honored to be included in a novel. Iris Murdoch had done it all the time. People never minded how badly they were portrayed so long as you gave them one admirable characteristic they lacked in real life. He was planning to give Claire great acting talent, something he doubted she really had, despite the play reviews she had shown him. These had been local stuff, puff pieces no doubt, so they didn’t really count. Claire would emerge as the one family member with Christian values, even if she herself failed to recognize them as such. The rest of that crowd would get what was coming to them.

  At least he’d gotten the five hundred dollars out of them. That was something. They had to be made to pay up, with all their millions in the bank and their grand piano and their swimming pool. And that old fraud lying there by the pool, toasting in the hot September sun, pretending to recover from a stroke. Reginald thought of his visit to the hospital and the milk trickling down David’s chin. He had felt a moment of pity for the old bastard until he wiped his chin dry on the bedsheet. Disgusting. He was a disgust. We become in old age even more of what we have always been, a good phrase. He made a note of it. But the money! The money! There must be more money! Lawrence’s “Rocking-Horse Winner” came to mind. If only he could buy Iris such a rocking horse. Iris was the key. Iris was the answer to his money problems. Her email had gotten him the five hundred dollars and she would get him a lot more before he was done.