by Susan Swan
Charles is talking through his hat. I’m not anything like the man in the Camus novel. By the way, give my love to Caroline, if she’s still speaking to me.
She’s not mad at you. She just feels sad about you being in jail.
I’m sad about it too. I wish she would phone me. Look, I have to go. Exterior pressures are mounting as I speak.
LOL. Btw these avatars suck. I’ll try to get us something better.
Avatar? Oh, you mean our headshots. Don’t worry about them, son. I’ve got an idea. By the way, you don’t have to send me lots of love. I was making a joke.
LOL means laughing out loud, K? And don’t worry about what Charles said about you, Dad.
5
OF COURSE I worry about Charles telling my boy malicious tales. I last saw the Limey grifter eight months before I was formally charged. It was the day I left behind the bucolic charm of Paradise Island and flew north to meet the government stooges investigating my hedge fund companies. I’d already gone over Dieter’s travel list, ticking off the items I’d need for the trip: credit cards, bottled water, Tums for my indigestion and Rythmol for my bad, old heart.
I stood in my bedroom, pondering Caroline as she slept beneath sheets of Egyptian cotton.
Below our window, reflections from the boughs of the traveller’s palms swayed invitingly across the pool. At this hour, the tepid water would feel comforting, like a forgotten bath. But I had urgent business with Charles. Careful not to wake Caroline, I grabbed my bathrobe and a pair of flip-flops and tiptoed down the staircase.
Wrapping my bathrobe around me, I hurried to the beach and stood looking back at my villa, which nestled (if a home of mine can really nestle) on a sand dune behind a bright pink coral wall. Caroline had chosen the ghastly colour because it matched the blossoms on the hibiscus bushes.
For a moment, I lost myself in the noise of early morning: the screech of a sea bird, the hollow thunder of the waves striking the sand. In the distance my old friends the Shelbys were slowly making their way along the shore, dressed in shapeless plaid bathing suits. I waved, and they lifted their chins haughtily before turning and walking off in the other direction. Who did they think I was? A malicious sea creature rising from the ocean surf? The thought of their hatred felt galvanizing. I began to jog along the beach, my chest heaving, my head down, as if the soft ocean breeze was a bracing gust.
Huffing noisily, I climbed up and over a rocky promontory; I was visiting the last house on the beach before the lighthouse, and there was no other way to get there unless I took a boat from Nassau Harbour. Once more on terra firma, I put on the pair of flip-flops I’d been carrying and walked toward a ranch-style bungalow half-hidden in some Caribbean pines.
Caroline had persuaded me to lend Charles two million dollars for the beach house, and he often whined about why he couldn’t pay me back.
I entered his security code on the keypad and padded across a wide patch of brown grass that crinkled like dried-out human hair. An elderly Haitian man, in a sunhat and dark clothes, stood sweeping the stone pathway near the house. Charles hired refugees because they will work for low wages. The Haitian called out, asking me to wait. I did what he said, and his eyes held mine while he mumbled into his cellphone.
As I waited to be cleared, I heard a threatening growl behind me. Charles’s Doberman had been tied to a sea grapes bush, the angle of its ears warning me not to approach. I whispered the dog’s name, and Ulysses wagged the stump of his tail.
The Haitian put away his cell and beckoned, and I followed him to the house, passing the ludicrously expensive tomato-red dune buggy that Charles had paid for with my American dollars.
My host was on the screened-in back porch, eating breakfast. The reprehensible weasel. The nefarious ingrate. He jumped to his feet, smiling at my bathrobe and uncombed hair. I feel like your mistress, old boy, what with you sneaking up on me in your knickers.
It was always a shock when Charles opened his mouth. I let him air kiss my cheeks in the fatuous European style, then I hurled myself with a crash onto a rattan chair.
Elizabeth, bring us some cappuccinos? Charles waved at a Haitian woman chopping pineapple. Turning my way, he cocked his head gravely, or was he being supercilious? I could never tell if Charles was serious. Did you see the story about you? he asked. When I shook my head, he read out loud from the Nassau Guardian:
International hedge funds manager Dale Paul says he disapproves of the corrupt nature of America’s plea-bargaining system. That it convicts 95 percent of its defendants, Dale Paul says, mostly on severe mandatory sentences, is evidence that something is seriously wrong with American justice.
Aren’t you afraid you’ll anger your accusers? He narrowed his eyes the way he does when he thinks he has something on you.
I’m innocent. I grabbed a croissant from a straw basket on the table.
He nodded, frowning.
As the last of its buttery dough melted on my tongue, I mulled over his habit of borrowing my pass to the Ocean Club, where he passed himself off as Albert Finney. Instead of paying the bill in full, he covered the amount in the first column and ignored the column that said tax and total.
Has Caroline talked to you yet, Dale Paul?
I slit my eyes. Was he going to tell me something unpleasant about Caroline and myself? I was a man on the way down, and there were many tiresome things I was obliged to hear. I’m here to talk about my loan, I replied, grabbing two blueberry muffins from his basket.
Won’t the prosecutors seize the money if I give it to you, old boy?
Nobody will find out, I said biting into the first muffin. I need my money back. It’s not for me — it’s for those who depend on me. I finished the muffin and picked up the second.
Yes, of course. But stop eating for a bloody minute and listen, will you? He grasped my arm. There’s a reason I can’t pay you back.
And that reason is?
Dale Paul, if you’d just calm down and hear me out …
For Christ’s sake! I cried. I don’t want to listen to your trumped-up excuses. Just pay me the money back. But you can’t do that, can you?
No, but that’s because …
I don’t want to hear another word, you addled lager lout! You scrofulous poseur!
Shaking free of his hand, I said goodbye, opened the screen door, and walked briskly down the steps. On the veranda, Charles shouted some incomprehensible nonsense. I kept walking. The Haitian gardener stopped his sweeping to watch me go.
As I staggered across his lawn, my heart — my bad, old heart — started knocking bumpety-bump. I felt light-headed, and there was a boiling sensation in my gut. I stopped near the bush where Ulysses was tied. I couldn’t help it. I began to retch, spewing my breakfast over the scorched grass. Ulysses dropped his head and started lapping up the sulphur-coloured goo. His slurping sounds disgusted me. Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I hurried past the creature.
6
CAROLINE WAS WAITING for me in our breakfast nook, the one room I’d allowed her to decorate, ignoring, as was my wont, the debts she was incurring. She had put up hand-pressed wallpaper and replaced Esther’s ironstone plates with a set of Willow pattern china.
Caroline smothered me in a perfumed hug. How did it go, darling?
I blanched at the sight of the croissant basket that Dieter was holding and said I was too distracted to talk about Charles.
No wonder, you poor darling! Mother gave me a commiserating look. You and Caroline have a long trip ahead.
Mrs. Paul, I’m staying here to look after my brother. Caroline’s voice quavered. His cancer has come back, you see.
I didn’t know that, Caroline!
He said he was going to tell you this morning.
A shocked hush fell over the breakfast nook. Davie stopped eating his soft-boiled egg and stared sympathetically at Caroline.
Meredith, who looked perplexed, stayed silent while Mother made a tiny unhappy noise and then began tearing at her toast and rearranging the bread into neat rows of small, doughy balls. An early symptom of her mad cow disease, one of the signs we overlooked.
For god’s sake, Mother, I said. You used to tell Kis and me not to play with our food.
Like a child, she stopped what she was doing and hung her head.
7
IN DOWNTOWN NASSAU, I spotted G.T. Galbadon taking out cash from an instant teller. He was one of the investigators from the Securities Exchange Commission who were pocketing my hard-earned coin. If there were a more sinister creature, you’d be hard-pressed to find him. Galbadon, with his drooping moustache and narrow shoulders, resembled old Cootes, my pervy geography teacher at Munson Hall.
That cretin is stealing what’s left of my funds, I hissed.
Be nice, Caroline whispered. Maybe you should ask him to dinner.
Don’t make me barf, I retorted and climbed out of our car.
Good sir, are you enjoying your ill-gotten gains? When I started toward him, he lumbered off down an alley, moving abnormally quickly for a man of his bulk. Behind my back, I heard Caroline yelling. I turned on my heel, feeling annoyed, and a photographer ran out from behind a parked suv and shoved a camera in my face. There was a harrowing click as I shoulder-barged the lummox out of my way.
You manhandled that man, Caroline said when I climbed back into our car.
Meredith cleared her throat. Dale Paul hardly touched him.
Caroline threw me a withering glance. I knew what she was thinking: Good old Kister, always taking your side.
8
WE WERE RUNNING late by the time we pulled into a gas station on President Kennedy Drive. Yet Meredith chose that moment to visit the powder room. Caroline and I waited in silence while my cousin threaded her way through the taxis lined up at the gas pumps, the cabbies turning to gape at the tall, older woman with the long grey braids. As soon as Meredith disappeared, I said: I don’t want to get into a discussion in front of Kis, but why aren’t you coming with me?
Try to think of somebody beside yourself, Caroline replied nastily. Charles looked after me when our parents weren’t around. Now it’s my turn to look after him.
Caroline, do I have to order you to come?
Please watch your tone, Dale Paul! Her large blue eyes sparked with an emotion I couldn’t identify. I am not — and I repeat — I am not your servant. She uttered the last sentence in a lowered voice because Meredith’s head had suddenly appeared in the car window. As we sat there glowering at each other, my cousin climbed inside and Caroline started up the car, pushing her foot to the floor as if she couldn’t wait to be rid of me.
9
BACK AT ESSEX, I doodle some Gchat avatars, photograph the images in our washroom, and email them to Davie. His resembles a long-haired elf, while mine is the visage of the old coot I see each morning in the mirror. Perhaps you’ll recognize my craggy, time-blasted features and, ahem, the coat hanger eyebrows and pouchy eyes. There is nothing for it. As John Giaccone would say, It is what it is.
From: [email protected]
To: Dale Paul
Subject: Some questions
Hi Dad:
Meredith said I should tell you about my experience at the Buddhist retreat in France. That’s where I went after I disappeared and Thich Nhat Hanh, the monk who runs it, helped me get over my anger at you. He said the task is to hold your anger with love and not to chase away anger in yourself or someone else. Instead, we need to invite in another energy that will care for the anger.
He said I did the right thing revisiting the place in my childhood where I was happiest. You had time for me at Surf Song, and for a while, you and Mom were happy there, too. I know Mom’s drinking was becoming a problem, and it’s still a problem. Though she tells me she’s drinking less now.
And, hey, I’d forgotten you could draw! It brings back the times you and I used to sketch soldiers from the photographs in your Civil War books. Remember when you kept a set of watercolours in your desk? You did great sketches of Abraham Lincoln. Can I be honest? You scared me. You even knew cool stuff about the German philosopher Hegel and his idea of the individual surrendering to the state. But, hey, I know Hegel was against authoritarianism and “surrendering” isn’t a fair reading of his noble theories.
Half the time I never knew what to say to you. So much went over my head. Mom said you used to be a bookworm when she met you, and that she was one too. I mean, how great is that!!! It’s sad that you two fell out of touch, but these things happen, right?
Anyway, Dad, I hope you can understand how your reputation has made it hard for people to see who I am. They treat me like I am guilty too! Maybe you didn’t understand that? But moving forward, I really would like you to answer some questions I have about what you did. Thanks, man.
Hi Dad: K, a bunch of questions coming up. Ready?
Fire away, Davie.
Why didn’t you give adequate funds to Mom in your divorce settlement? Are you for real, Dad? Mom said you wanted to get back at her through me. Honestly, how could you be so mean to the person you had a kid with? All you thought about was yourself.
That’s not fair, son.
Answer the question, Dad. Here’s another one. Why did you give yourself a ten-million-dollar bonus when your company got in trouble?
A corporate bonus is a symbol of financial success, and in my case, it gave our troubled company time to get back in the black.
Yeah, but it’s still dishonest, isn’t it? And why did you invest in Coca-Cola when that company has unethical practices? Coca-Cola bottles water in Rajasthan, India, for basically free and then sells that same water BACK to the locals at 1,000 times the price! You understand that Rajasthan is a very dry part of India, right? And the locals already have very poor access to water?
Look, you just don’t understand how business works. My shareholders favour the personal accumulation of wealth over acts of charity, so you might find yourself making a similar decision if you ran Quaestus Capital.
Not a chance! I’m not like you. And why did you refuse to give Caroline money to help Great Danes with eye problems? Her organization depended on personal donations and it didn’t have a wealthy patron. For a while, her brother helped them out, but you never gave her a dime.
I don’t want to be unfair to the dogs, Davie, but they shouldn’t have been born.
I can’t believe your bullshit. That’s emotionally stunted. K, last but not least, I finally read Tim Nugent’s article about you getting the prisoners to bet on the death of aging celebrities. Really? Seems weird. And tasteless.
I’m sorry you feel that way. The workshop is teaching the men important skills. Look, let’s talk about this in person, okay?
Young people have it in for the old. It’s part of the human chain of generational frustration. If you’re young, you’re against what has gone before, and if you’re no longer young, you need to reinvent yourself to keep up with the times, although the Lord Help and Keep You if you make the young take on the role of your adversary. Trying to defend yourself only mires you deeper in their anger.
Point being, Davie is guilty of the sin he accuses me of: selfishness. Has he apologized for putting all of us through his faux death? No. The only person he has been thinking about is himself. It was cruel of him to make us suffer. And to accuse me of being stingy with child support! Pater would have been furious if I had challenged him the way my boy is challenging me.
But I have something more serious on the brain. Is Meredith going to tell him about the trust? Not even Kis can keep a secret like that for long.
10
HOW RIGHT I was! Two days later, Davie sends me another email:
From: [email protected]
To: Dale Paul
Subject: My grandmother’s tr
ust fund
Hey Dad:
Yesterday I phoned the family lawyer to see if I could borrow funds and he told me there is no money left in my grandmother’s trust. Meredith confirmed it. How could you do this to our family, Dad? That money belonged to all of us. I was so wrong about you. You haven’t changed. You are still the same hard-nosed bastard looking for ways to take advantage of the people who love you. Don’t you know how much damage you cause? Don’t bother answering.
I delete Davie’s email and set off for the Chow Hall, pausing every now and then on the rickety stairs outside our dorm to see if my stalker will creep up behind me and finish me off. The way I feel tonight, it would be a mercy.
Nothing happens. The cold mountain wind lifts my hair off my forehead, but there are no springy footsteps behind me on the old wooden staircase, no dark silhouette billows up and threatens to swallow me whole.
11
May 24, 2013
Dear Tim:
Two days ago, as I filed out of Chow Hall, Martino called me over and said I needed to be in the warden’s office at noon the next day because some big shot wanted to see me. (FYI: Martino is the guard who smuggles my letters to you.)
So around eleven-thirty the next morning, I joined the men lining up behind the fence. Just as they once did for me, television crews fought one another for parking spots, their cameras trained on a white limousine that came gliding toward us.
Earl climbed out. He gave all of us standing behind the fence two hearty thumbs up before he turned to Nathan Rickard and they strolled off together. From this distance, it was impossible to notice anything odd about the way he walks unless you already know how things are with him.