The Other Side of the World (7 page)

“Has,” I corrected.

“Ah—your father's still alive then, which makes me happy for you both,” Mister Falzetti said, “although it cannot but be hard on you at times, Charlie—to be in the presence of his unrequited ambitions. Or did he live vicariously through your books, Ms. O'Sullivan?”

“Did you live vicariously through your son, Mister Falzetti?”

“Of course not. If anything, the reverse is true—Nick admired me more than was good for him.”

“A shame, for if only you'd emulated him…”

“You're quite good at repartee,” Mister Falzetti said. “But then words are your métier—the unapologetic and cruel wit of your characters is often the most endearing element in your novels. Now Nick could be word-clever too, of course, even if he never—”

“Nick's
dead
, Mister Falzetti,” I said, finding myself unable hold back—to keep my irritation from showing. “So why don't you just give it a rest, okay? Nothing any of us can do will bring him back.”

“Oh I know
that
,” Mister Falzetti said. “But I was told that you let him go, Charlie—that you held onto him for an instant before he made the plunge.”

“
Hey—come on!
”

I started to stand, but Seana pushed me down, stood, and lifted her wine glass so that it was only an inch or two from Mister Falzetti's nose. “Now I bet you're the kind of guy who puts himself to sleep some nights by imagining there's a touch of evil about you that makes you truly fascinating,” she said, “when the truth is that you're really just a creep.”

“And you're the kind of woman Evelyn Waugh might have adored—a mean-spirited Catholic fabulist,” Mister Falzetti said and, very gently, he nudged Seana's glass aside and moved past her to the fireplace. “The reason I preferred
Plain Jane
to
Triangle
,” he continued, “is because it was utterly lacking in conscience, or in anything called conscience, as the poet would have it.”

“Yeats,” Seana said, “‘The Tower.'”

“I surely won't attempt to compete with you in a literary duel,” Mister Falzetti said, “but I will complete my thought, which is that it's the absence of conscience in your work that I find so endearing. Unlike Waugh, whose characters are ingeniously eccentric but whose dark humor, alas, is marred by his schoolboy Catholicism, or Patricia Highsmith, say, whose characters are often charmingly amoral—true psychopaths—your characters are quintessentially normal, and very American. It's not only that your heroine gets away with murder—it's her lack of contrition—her ease with what she's done that delights. Plain Jane indeed!”

“You know what?” Seana said, and she gave Mister Falzetti her most winning smile. “If I'd had a father like you, I'd have killed myself too.”

“Oh but Nick did not kill himself,” Mrs. Falzetti said, her voice assured in a way that surprised me.

“Eugenia's correct,” Mister Falzetti said. “It was an accident. The embassy and the police assured us that it was an accident. Isn't that so, Charlie?”

“It was an accident,” I said.

“That's what I believe,” Mrs. Falzetti said, “although at times Lorenzo has other notions, and I trust I'm not talking out of school to say that ever since we received the news, Lorenzo has been living in a state of shock that has given rise to a prolonged and somewhat antic state of denial.”

“And I believe we've overstayed our welcome,” Seana said.

“Lorenzo worried about Nick more than he can admit,” Mrs. Falzetti continued. “He loved our son inordinately, and in his heart I believe he has always felt responsible for Nick's troubles.”

“Come, come, Eugenia,” Mister Falzetti said. “Let's not bother these young people with our disagreements.”

“What I'm saying does not excuse Lorenzo, of course,” Mrs.
Falzetti said, “but it does help account for his behavior of late. That's what I believe.”

“It's what you want to believe,” Mister Falzetti said, and he kissed the top of his wife's head. “Eugenia is not the same woman she was before Nick left us. It may not seem so to see her on a day like this, but she can be a pistol. Can't you, dear?”

“I certainly can,” she said, “although I do not possess the potential to be quite as insufferable as you. Therefore, I apologize to our guests. Manners, please, Lorenzo. Manners must get us through.”

“Manners, yes, but also surprises and shrewd purchases,” Mister Falzetti said. “I bought up lots of Wyeth early on—that's not under the heading of ‘surprise,' which we'll get to by and by—but when we were friendly, and before fame rotted his brain, Wyeth sold me his stuff at bargain-basement prices, along with work from the father. He couldn't get rid of his father's stuff fast enough, and I knew back then what we've come to understand since: that the father's work will last far longer than the son's. Burned Andy's cheap, arrogant ass when he found out what I was getting for my stash, one by one, father and son. So don't you worry about us, no matter how far into the toilet this lousy economy goes.”

“Which reminds me,” Mrs. Falzetti said to us. “Do you worry about what the recession has done to our economy?”

Seana started to laugh, but covered her mouth. “I'm not laughing at you or your question, ma'am,” she said. “And the answer is no—I don't worry about the economy, and neither does Charlie, though we appreciate your concern.”

“I inherited Nick's accounts,” I said. “I'm in good shape for a while to come.”

“I'm happy for you,” Mrs. Falzetti said. “Nick did have a generous streak in him—he's left everything to Trish, you know.”

“We hope to visit Trish,” I said.

“Trish is a fine young woman,” Mrs. Falzetti said. “She's done
a wonderful job with Gabe and Anna. Anna is seventeen months old and quite normal so far, I'm pleased to report.”

“Ah—you've gone and said the magic word,” Mister Falzetti exclaimed. “
Normal!
And speaking of normal, I believe it's time for our little surprise, so you will give me two more minutes, won't you?”

“Don't,” Mrs. Falzetti said, but I couldn't tell if she was talking to us, or to Mister Falzetti.

“I can assure you it will be worth your while,” Mister Falzetti said. “A rare opportunity to see how we entertain ourselves up here, where the winters, as you know, can be long and dark.”

I was ready to leave, but when Seana sat where she was without moving, I stayed put. I felt distinctly numb, though, in the way I'd feel after a long walk along the coast when the cold and the damp could seep into your bones.

A minute later Mister Falzetti twirled into the room. “
Ta-da!
” he exclaimed. He still had on his blazer, but was wearing bright red lipstick, and a wig of blond curls, a hair net pulled down over it. He put his arm around Mrs. Falzetti.

“So what do you think?” he asked. “Honestly now. Wasn't this worth waiting for?”

“He usually only does this on Saturday nights,” Mrs. Falzetti explained. “I feel distinctly embarrassed, and once again I do apologize.”

“Nothing to be embarrassed about or apologize for,” Mister Falzetti said. “We all have our quirky sides, but most of us are too shy—too
timid
—to show them forth. Think of the great pain people live with because of unexpressed desires! Think of the fabulous lives we
might
lead that we never get to experience. Think of Nick, and of how nasty, brutish, and short his life was—of all he hoped to do and never will.”

I wondered if Nick had ever seen his father like this, and then realized: yes or no, what difference to who he was, or to his fate? I felt an urge to
defend
Nick—to say to Nick's father what Nick
might have said: that though his life had been short, he'd done what he wanted when he wanted, but when I imagined Nick chiding me for being romantic and sentimental again, I decided to say nothing.

“Stop,” Mrs. Falzetti said. “Please stop, Lorenzo.”

“Nasty, brutish, and short,” Seana said. “Doubtless true. Still, he wasn't poor or solitary.”

“Correct again,” Mister Falzetti said, and he licked a fingertip, wiped away an invisible hair from a corner of his mouth. “It's one thing, of course, to imagine new and different lives on a piece of paper, but far different—far more
tangible
, wouldn't you agree?—to let the imagination live in the
actual
world. Why not indulge ourselves, then, no matter how foolish and ridiculous our indulgences? Why not live the lives we desire, given that this is not a first draft—that this is all there is? Would you like to see me perform one of my music hall numbers? Would you like to kiss me?”

“Sure,” Seana said.

“I had a feeling, from your books, that you'd prove willing,” Mister Falzetti said.

“Did you?” Seana asked. “Or were you hoping you could
épater
me just a wee bit?”

“Perhaps,” he said. “Did I succeed?”

“Who knows?” Seana said, and cracking her glass against the side of the fireplace so quickly that I hardly noticed the motion—my eyes were fixed on Mister Falzetti's mouth, where the lipstick had been applied the way a little girl might have applied lipstick on her first try—and with part of the glass still in her hand, and with a swift downward movement, but without splashing blood on herself, she sliced his bottom lip open.

“That should shut him up for a while,” she said. “You know what they say about having too much of a good thing.” Then she leaned toward Mister Falzetti, but instead of kissing him, she licked at the blood that ran along his chin as if, I thought,
she were slurping ice cream that was melting down the side of a sugar cone.

“Thank you, dear,” Mrs. Falzetti said.

“You're welcome,” Seana said, and then: “Duct tape.”

“Duct tape?”

“Duct tape,” Seana said. “Duct tape should seal things until an ambulance gets here. Do you have duct tape?”

“Oh I'm certain we do,” Mrs. Falzetti said, her voice animated in a way it had not been since our arrival. “Lorenzo has an excellent workshop at the other end of the house. He's quite handy, you know.”

“And some gauze if you have it,” Seana said, after which she took her cell phone from her purse and dialled 911 while Mister Falzetti, his hand cupped under his chin, the blood pooling in his palm, smiled at us in a way that was not unlike the way Nick had smiled when, on his balcony, he'd charged at me: as if feelings of imminent triumph were being quickly replaced by childlike bewilderment.

 

After we'd checked into the Ocean House Hotel in Port Clyde—an early nineteenth century rooming house for local fishermen that had been turned into a bed-and-breakfast, and that was a short walk from the boat landing where the ferry docked—Seana and I drove up Route 131 to Thomaston to visit Trish. I'd called Trish from Northampton to tell her I'd be visiting Nick's parents, and asked if it would be all right to stop by, and she had responded with a typical Trish answer: “When have I ever denied you, Charlie?” she'd said, and in a low-key monotone that had been a turn-on for me once upon a time, but which I'd come to realize had nothing to do with her trying to be seductive or mysterious, and was merely an expression of her intermittent, ongoing glooms.

I mentioned that I'd be coming with a friend, and when I told her who the friend was, she asked if I was shitting her or what.
She reminded me about how smitten she'd been with
Triangle
(she remembered that Seana had been one of my father's students), so was I just making this up in order to get past her hi-tech security system and into her pants again, or would Seana O'Sullivan
really
be coming with me?

When I said that Seana would really be with me, Trish said to come anytime we wanted, early or late, and if we felt like roughing it, we could stay over. She wouldn't ask and wouldn't tell, she said, but she congratulated me on my conquest, and said I was proving to be more like my father than anyone had imagined possible—anyone but her, of course, and she trusted she'd get credit for having seen my potential at a time when few others had.

I said that Seana was just a friend, and when she said something about knowing what the word ‘friend' could mean to a guy like me, I pointed out that Seana had moved in with my father before I'd returned from Singapore.

“Well, based on her books, I figure she's into sharing,” Trish said. “So congrats again—and to your old man too—and we'll see you soon, buckeroo. But one favor, okay?”

“Sure.”

“Do your best not to look surprised when you see me. It's been a while, and I had another child, and I've become what some people might call plump.”

“Plump is good.”

“But know this: that I do look forward to seeing you, Charlie. You're essentially a good guy, no matter what you think and no matter what you did.”

“Can I quote you on that?”

“No,” she said, and she hung up.

 

“Oh my god!” Trish exclaimed as soon as we entered her house. “It's really you, isn't it?”

“Who else could I be?” Seana replied, clearly delighted by
Trish's uninhibited exuberance, and by Trish herself, who, though overweight, as promised, was as lovely as ever, her long, soft brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, her cheeks flushed, her slate-gray eyes aglow with eagerness and enthusiasm.

“Did Charlie tell you that
Triangle
is my very favorite novel of all time, and that I could recite most of it, word for word, my favorite scenes anyway.”