Probably because we’re trying not to breathe, we work in silence for the first three lots. But sack number four contains the mother lode of chicken carcasses boned by Dennis for the tajine. I step back and gag.
“Let’s go outside a minute,” David suggests.
We stand gratefully in the dark and the faint rain, a fine fresh mist like spray blown from the sea. “We’re not going to find it,” I say.
David says nothing for a minute, then, “This is going to bother me.”
“That you can’t formally lay him to rest, or that someone was deranged enough to steal him?”
“No one stole him, Fen.”
“Mistaking the box for something else?”
David laughs. “Like what, a box of bonbons? That’ll be a rude surprise.”
“Perhaps it’ll come back by post, anonymously.”
“That’s what Lillian thinks. She even searched out in the garden, as if someone might have taken Dad for a walk and left him out to air! She’ll be waiting a year for that parcel. She never gives up, not on anything.”
This silences both of us. I’ll wonder later if he steered us this way on purpose.
“Do you know,” says David, “there was a time when I believed, when I actually feared you were plotting to steal her away from me?”
I make an inarticulate sound, between a grunt and a whimper.
“Remember that Christmas I brought her home and I found out you knew who she was? The way you ogled her throughout that dinner. I mean, if looks could ravish . . .” He’s clearly amused, as if the thought of my captivating Lillian, stealing her heart, were pathetic or absurd. “You were always the smartest, the most bookish, and she was like this . . . this budding Virginia Woolf, this brilliant firefly glow and I was just tagging along, pretending to love all those books as much as she did, pretending at all the scholarly passions that made me think of
you
. Right after I met her, do you know, I pored over the books in your bedroom, like some desperate refresher course. You had those passions for real.”
“But never mind,” I say. “
Then
you found me out. The poofter was unmasked.”
David looks deflated. He raises his hands in abdication.
I cut off his apology. “No, no, too late. Other waters are rushing too quickly under the bridge.”
“Fenno, I’m so dim, what can I say? What can I possibly say?”
Thank you from the depths of my emasculated heart? To hell with your sperm count? May the fertile force be with you? Several ugly suggestions pop into my head. But I say, “Whatever you think you ought to say, consider it already said. Nothing’s definite. We’ll see what happens.”
He nods solemnly. “Take it one step at a time.”
“Yes.” I would touch his arm if I didn’t think he’d flinch. Which would make me angry all over again when, finally, finally, just for the moment perhaps, I am angry at no one.
And no, even after my allegedly iron gut surrenders most of another four-star meal, Dad’s ashes do not show up in the rubbish from this one.
MAL ANNOUNCED JAUNTILY
that since this Christmas might be his last, he’d spend it where Christmas would be celebrated as it should be, in London. The
Messiah
would be sung as intended, in a cathedral where monarchs were christened, married, and paraded in coffins laden with lilies as large as trombones. The shops would be filled with Dickensian riot and cheer. And setting aside all expected culinary gaffes, the Yorkshire pudding would be authentically perfect. “Besides, Christmas isn’t Thanksgiving. It’s not about food,” declared Mal.
When Lucinda heard that he would not be going to Vermont, she did not protest; she simply determined that Vermont would follow Mal and, pulling out The Senator’s checkbook and contacts, leased a flat for the family.
“There goes finishing school tuition for a dozen knocked-up waifs,” said Mal. “Did I need to
state
that an entourage was not a part of my plan?”
He sounded unusually happy, and I said, “So after Christmas, ditch the entourage and come for New Year’s where it’s celebrated as it should be—land of Hogmanay, first-footing, tall dark men with lumps of coal.” This was a role which David relished playing; for several years now, he’d been the one to carry that black briquette of good fortune over the threshold of Tealing.
“Are we a tourist brochure?” said Mal.
“We are, as you’ve seen, a family desperate for intelligent distraction.”
I was glad when he accepted; at the very least, his presence would keep me from impulsively crossing the Channel. I had received a single postcard from Tony, a flip, cryptic message implying that he might be back a bit later than planned:
Tis a sweet life here & am hoping for more. Maybe another situation till March if I get lucky. Are you lonely? Are you partying hard? Remembrez moi?? Save me one of your bonny Scotch smiles. Back before you know it.
No signature. Fine, I thought. My life had begun to feel safe again, even a little airy. But I did have these pangs of yearning, and when they shot through, they were fierce.
As it turned out, distraction was irrelevant that year. Lillian’s marriage to David, I was to reflect, had altered relations at Tealing as quietly as a new stream works a placid path through the woods (though granted, Mum had been a dominant force in those days and would have overshadowed almost any new woman brought into the fold). But now, the small planet I knew as Family had been struck by a comet in the guise of my second sister-in-law, the proudly pregnant Véronique. Expensively perfumed, ostentatiously affectionate (even with Dad), perpetually overdressed in velvets, silks, and garments edged in fur, she declared her arrival without even a stab at humility. And her surprising youth—she seemed not much past twenty—made her style and confidence that much more offensive. I disliked her on impact and felt almost pleased when I became certain the antipathy was mutual.
Dad welcomed Véronique with a festive enthusiasm which not only irked but surprised me. It was Christmas, yes, but it was also the first anniversary of Mum’s death. He cut holly from the back fields, as Mum had always done, but instead of tying the branches in a simple sheaf and fixing it to the door, he accepted Véronique’s offer to fashion them into a stylish wreath. He ordered the crate of blood oranges Mum had always liked and, as she’d always done, poured them into the grand Chinese bowl which came off its shelf only to fill this function. But he let Véronique take a dozen of the oranges, puncture them with cloves and candied flowers, and hang them from velvet ribbons in all the front windows—a decorative gesture Mum would have deplored. I had to agree with my brothers, however, that Dad’s summer holiday in Greece had done him good and that his announcement to retire from the
Yeoman
seemed like a clearing of the decks rather than a fatalist retreat.
That Christmas also marked Dennis’s debut as itinerant chef at Tealing. This, too, pleased Dad (no doubt relieved that his son was smoking trout instead of dope). He seemed not a bit offended when Dennis went through the kitchen discarding Mum’s old boxes, jars, and biscuit tins, even pots and pans he deemed inferior. “Aluminium leeches into the food and then into your brain—causes dementia!” I heard him explaining to Dad, who’d encountered a pile of pots on the snow outside the back door. Dad laughed and said, “Well carry on. Just leave me a skillet for my bacon and a kettle for my tea. Dementia’s already set in.”
David and Lil were rarely about. They worked like accountants at tax time and dropped by after dinner when they could, made an effort at conversation, then fell asleep in front of the telly, their heads inclined together. Always the last to turn in, I’d switch off the lights and, when this failed to startle them awake, tuck a blanket up around their shoulders. When I came down in the morning, they would be gone, the blanket folded, the cushions smoothed. Even on Christmas, David spent the morning at work. And Dad was absent a fair amount. He still drove into town, to the paper, every other day or so—weaning himself from a long life’s work. Typically, I was left alone with the almost inseparable newlyweds.
One day I went upstairs to get a book and found Véronique in the middle of my room, looking about like a foreclosure agent. She apologized for startling me (not for trespassing), then asked if I didn’t think that this room, with the lovely warm sunshine beaming through these windows all afternoon, might make a perfect nursery for her children whenever they came to visit. Wouldn’t the room just “blossom” if the trim were painted a very pale shade of lavender?
“Comme ça,”
she said, touching her silk blouse, which echoed the blue of her undeniably pretty eyes. While a part of me had to acknowledge that this room was no longer “mine” (and that grandchildren claim more than hearts), I had a hard time containing my fury. “Personally, I find that color a little vulgar,” I said.
“A yellow, then, a very light yellow, do you believe?” was her immediate answer. I could not tell if her intense, maddeningly beautiful gaze was ingenuous or mocking.
“Oh yes yellow, by all means yellow,” I said. “A brilliant choice. And on future hols, I’ll sleep with you and Dennis across the hall. Sort of like a grand slumber party, what do you think?”
She laughed absently and kissed me on the cheek. “Oh you are humorous,” she said.
After that, I went out often to wander through the woods and fields, braving colder air than I would have liked, just to escape her invincible effervescence. The new houses I encountered left me with a childish resentment, and the too-large wellies I had to borrow from David left me with blisters on my heels. I disliked the woman even more for these insults to my comfort.
On New Year’s Eve day, I met Mal at the rail station. London had been the right choice, he said, even with Lucinda and his brother tagging along (“No faux fiancée this year, thank God”). His sister had decided it was too much trouble to take her small children across an ocean for the promise of worse cold, worse damp, and the risk of Irish bombs. The Senator had joined them only for Christmas Eve and Christmas.
“Get this, the old man’s starting a bid for Washington—now, at the eleventh hour,” said Mal. “Strom, old buddy, watch your back.”
“Your father’s what, midway through his sixties? That’s not so old in those circles.”
“Well it’s Methuselean in mine,” said Mal. “But that’s not the point. I bet some shrewd young advisor told him that in the eyes of the constituents he needs—you know, all those back-to-the-woodstove New Yorkers—a son dying of plague should cancel out the pro-life Catholic embarrassment of Mom. Maybe the contrast’s even poignant. You know, ‘Mom’s Love Defies Pope,’ that sort of cheesy headline. Just think, my life will get a
spin
.”
“I wouldn’t flatter yourself,” I said.
When I changed the subject and told him about Véronique, he snapped, “You don’t like her because she’s French. It’s one of those cultural conflicts sewn into your genes—congenital envy of inborn style.”
“Stylish she is,” I said. “But just you wait.”
She was, of course, the one to open the door at the sound of our arrival. To my dark delight, she greeted Mal by kissing him on both cheeks, looking him over, and stating cheerfully that he was the most underfed American she had ever met. He must get himself straight to the kitchen and let her husband fatten him up. I suppose this was a compliment grounded in the never-too-thin ideal of her world, but to my ears it was unforgivably stupid. Mal’s reaction was to smile and ask if her husband made soufflés; a craving for chocolate soufflé had dogged him for weeks. Promptly, with an arm around his bride, Dennis reeled off his repertoire: mocha, white chocolate, gianduja, and the plain old magnificent classic.
“The plain old magnificent classic,” Mal answered. “The image I have of myself a few decades hence.”
Dennis laughed brightly and clapped Mal on the back. “As I’m sure you shall be!”
As on his previous visits, when the house had been equally full, Mal slept on a camp bed in my room. His insomnia did not travel, but he muttered in his sleep. This was a habit I hadn’t noticed the other times we’d shared this room, or perhaps it was new, the fear he encased in wit by day leaking out at night. Either way, it startled me several times a night, sometimes leaving me awake for an hour or longer, chewing on my anger at Véronique (and at Dennis, for loving her) or missing my mother, who would have kept things as they should be, people in positions they had earned.
MAL’S T-CELL COUNT
had stopped falling, Dr. Susan said, but she didn’t like the look of his liver. She made a list of foods he should avoid and told him to say a final farewell to booze of any kind. I heard all this news on my weekly firewood haul as we listened to a Bach flute sonata.
“You know, I’ve never heard you play,” I said.
“I’ve given away my flute, so I’m afraid you never will,” said Mal. When I said I was sorry, he answered quickly, “I’d begun to stop a long time ago anyway. It’s not exactly tragic.” He glanced at the record jacket beside him on the couch. “But I did play this piece, and not too badly, that last summer before I went AWOL from a concert career.” He stopped to listen for a moment. “Very mannerly music, don’t you think? Maybe the influence of the harpsichord, which many people find a superficial, robotic instrument—I can’t agree. I’m remembering how much more emotional this felt from the inside—though I suppose that could have been the end of adolescence talking. . . . Now here’s that cunning melancholy cello. Listen.”
I listened—as much to Mal’s reminiscence as to the music. I tried to imagine him, seventeen years old, standing with that slim silver instrument poised across a terse mouth, swaying like a tender sapling in a breeze, as I had seen flutists do in the few concerts I’d ever attended.
“I fell a little in love with that cellist.” Mal said this so quietly that I was only half certain of the words, and I thought he meant the cellist on the recording until he said, “She was an extraordinary musician, but she left that life behind as well. Lives become so . . .” He sighed. “Complicated by other lives.”
I looked at Mal and saw that he was pulling back, on the verge of crying. I said nothing, unsure whether this rare display of sorrow was a response to the thought of that summer, of his brother’s cancer and the trauma that must have been inflicted on his family, or of the path he turned away from because of that trauma. Perhaps he was thinking simply of what it had been like to be so young, to feel that life itself was so languorously long. There were so many reasons for Mal to break down completely that I marveled at his persistent self-control.