Skull Session (11 page)

After a time he gave up and reached for her, slid open the long zipper of her wet suit. They stood and undressed each other. Beneath her clothes, her skin was taut, soft curves taking some of the opal light. He was achingly erect, swollen, ready to burst, needing to bury himself in her. The cave felt supremely private, intimate. He spread their suits on the rock and laid her back down on them. She guided his face to her breasts, and he took one nipple in his mouth, drawing on her. Still suckling, he slid up between her thighs and drew exquisite circles in her wet folds until she pulled against his buttocks and slid him full into her. She was a cave, she was the mountain, the earth. She arched until he had reached the limit, socketed into her. Her body rippled, impossibly supple, as she drew upon her recent panic, her own mortal fear. And then all the pressures rose and converged and he became a volcano, bursting explosively into her as she writhed in her own orgasm, arching up to receive him. The tectonic plates shifting. Earthquake.

When he spiraled back, she was crying softly. Some deep part of her, upwelling and becoming tears. Delayed reaction to her close call? Remorse? Some deep sorrow? Sheer wonder? Sheer surrender, maybe. How amazing that you could feel so supremely close and yet understand nothing. The limits of intimacy: You could only get so naked, so revealed. Ultimately you were alone inside your own skin, your own skull.

Maybe she'd kill herself one of these times. Maybe that's what she wanted.
Eros, Thanatos.
And yet he had no choice but to go with her there too if that's where she had to go. Or maybe he'd find some key, some healing magic. He held her until she was done crying, alarmed at the mystery of her, knowing that he would remember this vividly for years, just as she'd said, and yet probably never understand.

11

"A
UNT VIVIEN, I HAVE bad news, I'm afraid," Paul said. He
JTx.
straightened the notes he'd prepared for this conversation.

Having devoted Thursday to the dive with Lia, he had spent all day Friday developing photos, making dozens of calls to the Lewisboro area—electricians, building supply outfits, dry cleaners, tool rental houses, heating specialists—and taking exhaustive notes. Looking down at his materials now, he found himself incredulous, despite having seen it with his own eyes.

His hand flew to his nose, mustache, and eyebrows, quick smoothing motions. "I have photos and a preliminary estimate for you. Bottom line, your house is a wreck. I don't know how to convey what it's Uke there. Structurally, it's not too bad, but inside it's as if a tornado hit it. There are holes in the interior walls big enough to walk through. The floor is two or three feet deep with your belongings, your clothes are everywhere, there's rodent and water damage. There are broken pieces of furniture on the ground around the house. Your papers are blowing around the house."

He heard her inhale. "My personal papers?"

"Yes. There are literally heaps and drifts of papers."

She didn't respond, and he waited, listening to the ghosts of other conversations on the satellite line.

At last he cleared his throat. "I'm sorry." He made himself go on: the furniture, the windows, the plumbing, the furnaces, the wiring, continuing the recitation of destruction until he ran out of things to say.

"Well," she said. "Well. And where does that leave us? What do you recommend?" She sounded stunned.

"First, you'll need to close off the house against further intrusion and the weather."

"Yes."

"Then you'll need to get electricity and some kind of heat source—the furnaces, preferably. Whoever is going to sift through your things will need a long time, and it's cold up there. The driveway won't be passable if it snows, so we may need plowing. And before we can bring the heat up inside, you'll need to see to the plumbing. At the very least, you should drain the remaining water in the pipes."

"It will have to be you," she said quietly. "Just you."

"I'm not really a plumber, Vivien, I—"

"No. I meant going through my things. It will have to be you."

Vivien's tone stiffened, a touch of the hauteur returning. "I can't have some local tradesman in there, looking over my papers, my belongings.

I'm not going to hire some . . . some chatterbox
Kelly Girl.
It's completely out of the question. You can have Mr. Becker in, from the village, for the pipes. He's done our repairs before. And Mr. Cohen for the wiring."

"Okay." Paul made a quick note.

"I'll want you to stay with them, of course. These people from town—I assure you they would not think twice about putting something they took a fancy to into their little pockets."

"All right." Her mistrust and contempt for her neighbors, he decided, were not endearing traits.

Paul took several minutes to outline his strategy for repairs. "Vivien," he concluded, "before I can pin down a final estimate, I need to ask you what your long-term plans are. If you plan to live in the house again, it'll have to be restored fully, which will take longer and cost more. If you plan to sell the house, you don't need to fix every last piece of furniture or get the kitchen operating and so on. We can just close it up, clean it out, make structural repairs."

"My long-term plans?" Her bitter laughter rang over the line. "I haven't made any. I hadn't planned on my house being torn to pieces. It will take me a little while to include this trifling fact in my plans. It won't make any difference in your work, will it? For the first two weeks or so?"

"Not immediately, no."

"Then let me wait to decide. Perhaps you can do me the favor of preparing two estimates, one long-term, the other short-term. We'll review the possibilities when I see you."

"I'm sorry?"

"We'll need to meet, of course. I haven't seen you in thirty years. I'm certainly not going to arrange anything as important as this without a face-to-face meeting. Our familial connection notwithstanding, I've learned the hard way not to trust people unless I've had the opportunity to take their measure first. And I simply don't negotiate over the telephone. I'd like you to fly out here. I'll pay for the flight, of course."

"Wouldn't it be better for you to come here? You could take a look at the house yourself. You could help sort things—"

"Good Christ, no," she said without hesitation. "I don't think I could bear it. Not with the house as you describe it." She sighed and went on in a dry, desolate voice. "I'm sixty-two, Paulie. At my age you begin to wonder about your life—whether it meant anything. Whether it was worth it. The best you hope for is a
maybe,
a delicate balance. Seeing my house, my things, every last
keepsake
—for
God's sakel"
She sobbed the last two words, as if choking on the indignity of it.

"I understand," he said gently.

"Now, we need to determine when you can catch a flight to San Francisco. As you pointed out, the sooner the better."

"It's very short notice—"

"I'll pay for your tickets and a fee for your time."

"I'll have to look at my calendar. We've got Thanksgiving plans for next week."

"Then perhaps this week. Today is Friday. You may still be able to get tickets for this weekend."

"Maybe, if there are seats available—"

"There are always first-class seats available." A little jab, reminding him of an important difference between them: money. Paul had never flown first class in his life. "What else, Paulie? This discussion has exhausted me."

There were still plenty of questions he could ask, but probably those were best left for later. "I guess that's all," he said.

"Then you'll let me know your flight schedule." The timbre of her voice changed as she spoke, becoming harsh, strident. "And Paulie—in the future you needn't waste your breath telling me how difficult winter is at Highwood. How cold the house is, how hard it will be to get vehicles up and down the driveway. These are topics I am
very
familiar with. As I'm sure you can imagine."

She hung up before he could reply.

12

P
AUL TRIED TO suppress his tics as the jet tilted and slid into its final descent. Since talking to Vivien on Friday, he'd been in constant motion, arranging his schedule, preparing his estimates, working on the MG. He'd been skeptical of finding tickets for any flight this close to Thanksgiving, but Vivien had been right—there were first-class seats available on a flight out on Saturday and, miraculously, a return flight Sunday.

Through the window, he saw the wing flaps extend. Beyond the wing, the water of the bay glinted, the clustered hills of San Francisco took dimension. Farther to the west, the sun threw a blinding slash of silver on the Pacific. Saturday afternoon, still two hours from sunset.

It was all happening very fast. One of the few advantages of being unemployed: a flexible schedule. He had no pressing reason
not
to take two days to fly to the West Coast. Mark was still at Janet's until Tuesday, the MG needed only a couple more hours of work. With the end of the semester imminent, Lia had so much work to do that she'd have no time for him over the weekend anyway. Actually, the timing couldn't be better.

Before he left, Lia had reminded him to probe Vivien. "Try to get her to tell you who would go to such lengths to wreck her house. Who might have a grudge they'd try to settle that way."

"Lia, she's not hiring me to be a detective, she's hiring me to fix up the house. Anyway, Vivien's a regular Medici, if what everybody tells me is true. She's a lot more accustomed to intrigues than I am. I'm not sure I can be that subtle."

"Why be subtle? Just ask her," Lia said. "Also ask her if I can have that maroon hat." She'd come into his arms then and kissed him sweetly. "Just be yourself with her. Don't let her push you off balance. She can't do anything to you if you relax and stay your easygoing, lovable self. Let
her
worry about being subtle."

Paul felt the first lurch of the jet's deceleration. He'd never subscribed to any particular religion, but on seeing the landscape tilt crazily, hearing the whine of air over the lowered wing flaps, his mind flinched into a sort of prayer. Within seconds, just as Lia said, the fear distilled out of him everything superfluous, leaving only the essentials:
Let me have more
life to live, I will use life more wisely, let Mark and Lia be okay and know how
much I love them.

The landing was uneventful.
How fast,
he thought, your concern for absolutes gives way to the petty details of disembarking, claiming bags, navigating the airport. What fickle creatures we are, how short-lived our humility.

He checked the bus schedules, but then remembered that Vivien was footing the bill, and found a row of taxis. Ahead of him, a young woman in a short skirt swung into the backseat of a cab, showing briefly the best legs Paul had ever seen in his life. He took a breath of California air, eucalyptus mixed with diesel exhaust, and was glad he'd come.

The Royale was an old five-story building just off Union Square, constructed in the era of elaborate cornices and lintels. Paul stood briefly on the sidewalk, savoring the bustle of the street for just a moment before facing Vivien. It was five o'clock, the rush-hour traffic was heavy, people were hurrying past. Still lit by the sun just over the horizon, the sky was a vast dome of deepening turquoise, and the streetlights had come on.

He'd reserved a room at a cheap hotel on Columbus Avenue, and for a moment he considered going there for a shower and a change of clothes. But that was just an excuse to put off seeing Vivien. He'd agreed to meet her as soon as he got in, she'd insisted on treating him to dinner, and he'd accepted. He shrugged: This was a business trip, not a vacation.

She stood aside for him to enter. "You are right on schedule, nephew. I do appreciate your punctuality. Welcome to my western redoubt."

"Hello, Aunt Vivien," Paul said. He held her shoulders briefly and smelled the lavender scent of her.

Paul followed her into a large living room, where Vivien sat in a burgundy upholstered armchair. "My Lord, here you are. When I last saw you, you were perhaps eight and had rips at the knees of your dungarees and snot running down from both nostrils. And of course, I was not a wrinkled-up old lady."

Paul started to object, but Vivien waved him to silence. "Now, we can exchange tiresome pleasantries and covertly inspect each other, or we can express our curiosity frankly over a glass of wine, whichever you like. Personally I would prefer the latter."

"The wine sounds wonderful." Paul smiled. There was a certain charm to her imperiousness.

She turned to a small table, which held a bottle of red wine and two stemmed glasses. "I took the liberty of opening this to breathe before you arrived. Isn't this a lovely suite? Every day is a luxury for me after those many years at Highwood."

As Vivien poured the wine, Paul looked around the high-ceilinged room. Victorian-era elegance, only slightly faded: a huge Oriental carpet on the floor, royal purple drapes on each side of the windows, a small fireplace framed by carved white oak and topped with a heavy black marble mantel. Crowded bookshelves rose from floor to ceiling on each side of the fireplace.

Vivien was much as he remembered her, a tall, broad-hipped woman who projected an aura of authority. With her vital manner, the fashionable cut of her brown hair, she registered as younger than her actual age. Her facial features clearly resembled Aster's, but while his mother's face had sagged into wrinkles of disappointment and self-pity, Vivien's was the face of a woman accustomed to having her way, lined with pride, anger, impatience. Her eyes were a piercing blue, hungry and alert, set in nests of fine wrinkles. They were the eyes, Paul decided, of a bird of prey. No, a dragon. Vivien the Dragon Lady.

"Your wine," she said.

He took the glass and brought it to his nose, inhaling the strong tannic scent. Vivien watched him closely, eyes darkly amused. "You have no idea how much I have looked forward to seeing you," she said. "It has been so long since I've seen a family member, someone of the same blood. It has to do with my narcissism, of course—a blood relative can provide a convenient mirror of oneself. An opportunity to find out what sort of stuff one is made of."

"I suppose," Paul said. "For better or worse."

"Absolutely! In fact, I suspect we learn most from that which is least flattering."

"Perhaps."

"Oh yes. Every time. The blood tells. Let's have a toast, shall we? To family. To the blood." She raised her glass and struck it hard against his, then sipped it thirstily. Paul lifted the rich red liquid to his lips, vaguely ill-at-ease with her toast.

"I must ask you to indulge me," Vivien said. "For years, I've gotten only bits and snatches of family news, from Kay. I am eager to hear all about you Skoglunds."

Be yourself,
Lia had said.
Keep it businesslike,
Aster had warned. "Tell you what," Paul said, hedging. "I'll be happy to tell you about the Skoglunds if you tell me about the Hoffmanns. If it's reciprocal."

"You mean I'm not to get out the klieg lights arid truncheons? That seems fair enough."

Paul told her about his sister and about Aster, avoiding anything too personal. Vivien sipped her wine and watched him closely as he spoke.

Outside, the muted noise of city traffic ebbed as rush hour passed.

"You've omitted one of the Skoglunds—yourself," she pointed out.

"I've already told you the basic saga. There's not a lot else."

"You have told me only the material data and have studiously avoided anything substantive."

"Such as?"

"Such as what you believe, what you aspire to. What it is you
want."

"What do I want? I'd like to be a good father to my son. I want to build a good relationship with Lia. I'd like my family to be happy. I want to do work that I believe in and that makes me enough money to live on."

She looked at him incredulously. "You don't want wealth, fame, power, lots of women—?"

He smiled. "Occasionally. Not so much anymore."

"You don't want to, for example, experience bliss, know God, probe life's mysteries, give wings to your own creative genius—"

"I don't think I'd recognize any of that if it came my way. In the existential department, I'll settle for being a decent person and keeping my worst impulses in check. A good marriage, a happy family, a vacation to someplace warm once a year. I figure that if I get that far, those other things will find their way into the equation."

She looked at him as if he were some exotic animal. "Astonishing!" she said. She took another sip of wine and then sighed. "Well. It all sounds lovely. You Skoglunds are such normal and decent people. It sounds as if you have all done quite well, considering."

"Considering?"

"Tut-tut! I'm speaking with admiration. The death of a father, especially by suicide, can have such difficult and lasting repercussions. There are whole books written on the subject."

"I'm not sure we exactly escaped unscathed, Vivien," Paul said carefully.

She must have noticed his hesitation. "Perhaps Ben's death isn't a topic you're comfortable with."

"It's been thirty years—it's territory I've gone over fairly thoroughly. You might say I feel the way you do when I tell you how long the driveway at Highwood is."

Her eyes narrowed and she smiled faintly, approving. "Point taken."

They both sipped their wine, and Vivien's expression softened. "Dear Ben. You may not know it, but your father and I were quite close." She gazed for a moment into space, remembering. "There was a wonderful period when the four of us spent a great deal of time together, Ben and Aster and Erik and I. And even after Erik . . . took his leave, there were Ben and Aster and I. And of course Dempsey. We were young enough to be optimistic still. We sincerely believed our thoughts and ideas and our . . . our
style
were so splendid that everything would turn out as we planned. That our meals and conversations, our games, our walks in the woods, the books we read and discussed, somehow
mattered,
were
significant.
With such
elan
we would accomplish all sorts of meaningful things. Such arrogance! But for us it was—how can I express it?—a golden era."

A golden era, yes, Paul thought. But with odd shadows on the periphery.

"Do you know, Ben and I even corresponded? It seems silly, with us living so close by, but Ben was a great believer in the gentle, scholarly art of letter writing. I still have his letters. I save all my correspondence." Her face twitched suddenly, mouth pulling downward sharply, a bitter frown. "That is, if they're not destroyed. Along with everything else at Highwood."

"I have a confession to make—I stole something of yours. Borrowed, anyway, from the floor of the library. This." He unfolded Ben's letter from his jacket pocket and handed it to her.

More than anything he'd said, the letter seemed to affect her. Her hands shook slightly as she held it to the light. When she was done reading, her face looked suddenly weary, eyes distant. Without saying anything, she folded the letter and handed it back to him.
You wonder
about your life, whether it meant anything,
she'd said.
You struggle to maintain
a delicate balance.

"Yes. Well. We had many fine dinners together," she said.

Paul gave her a moment. "Maybe we should talk about the house."

Vivien stirred in her chair, as if she'd just remembered he was there, then checked her watch. "I suppose I can endure it whenever you're ready. However, it's now half past six, and I made dinner reservations for seven. We can talk about it after dinner. I hope you like Chinese food—I reserved a room at the Xi'an, which I have found to be the finest in the city." She rose, crossed the room to pause in a doorway. "I will need a few minutes to get ready," she said over her shoulder.

"Please have some more wine."

He poured another glassful, then stood to look out the window. Below him in the street, traffic cruised past and several cabs waited at the curb. A siren whooped close and faded, the night sky glowed with the lights of the city.

Vivien was a powerful personality and would no doubt be an unpleasant person to have as an enemy. But she was also interesting.

She enjoyed being provocative, she didn't talk around a subject. If she . often managed to hit a nerve, it was due to her obvious aversion to small talk, her preference for matters of substance. And however the letter had affected her, she had rallied quickly: She had come back, speaking with precision and formality, mustering the stubborn arrogance that sustained her. You had to admire that.

Still, he didn't trust her either, any farther than he could throw her.

Paul strolled around the room, sipping wine, and stopped in front of the bookcase. Judging by the books she'd purchased in her six months in San Francisco, Vivien had maintained her eclectic reading tastes. Agatha Christie, the Castaneda books, a row of le Carre novels. History: books about the history of San Francisco, the Crusades, the Vikings. Several histories of the Philippine Islands.

There were maybe two dozen slick contemporary paperbacks on topics such as alien abduction, channeling, and life after death, and he wondered if these were interests Vivien had acquired since coming to the trendy credulity of Northern California. Farther down were a dozen or so textbooks on biochemistry and anatomy. Surprised, he found a whole shelf devoted to psychology and neurology, and pulled a book at random, finding it to be a fairly detailed layman's text on the brain.