Nick shook his head, flipping the postcard to read the fine print on an advertisement for a car wash in East Orange, New Jersey.
Makes you wonder. They see a nice American coming and going and right away take liberties.
Show Mr. Krill in, please. Bring a tray of coffee, super strong.
Mr. Krill looks well past the coffee point if you ask me.
I’m sure you’re right, but coffee would be fantastic. That nice stuff from Selfridges.
Right away. Ah, here he is, sir. Mr. Krill. She held open the door and pressed back against it, dodging the drifting hands of the man.
Freeball Krill?
Just a joke, Nick. Funny, yes?
Super. How did you get to London, Harry? Nick didn’t bother to stand.
Same as you, Nicky, the big swim. He climbed over the arm of one sofa on his way to Nick and then glanced around to see if this move was noted by Tania.
Nick waved Tania out the door then reached and opened a lower drawer, pulled out two packs of cigarettes from a carton, tossed one across the desk.
Much obliged.
Nick watched him fumble with the pack, then clicked open a gold lighter and held the flame, while Harry leaned in to take the light. He’d let his fingernails grow long and snagged.
Looking well, Harry.
Um. Harry Lewis tipped his head high up, opening his throat to take in more smoke. That’s the answer, the full punch, all you really need sometimes.
Glad to help.
You do help, Nicky-boy. You know you do.
Nick sat forward and studied the ripped open cigarette pack. Nice day out, he said.
It’s a mess out there, raining dogs.
Come on. Take a stroll. See the sights.
A stroll?
Good idea, right?
You mean you’re not coming along, too much to do? Right here at your nice big desk.
I think so, yes. We could have a drink later. Where are you staying?
With you.
Very funny.
Things I could tell that little pouch in the front there, oh, the things I could say, Harry laughed, his mouth crumpled tight, chin puckered and pink. Oh, he said, taking a long drag off the cigarette. You know what I mean, Nicky. I mean, my god, she’d be running for her life, and I can’t really blame her when I think about it, when I put myself in her shoes. I’d be doing more of a favor really, a service, when I think about it.
Who’s stopping you, Harry.
All in the right order, that’s my motto.
Nick laughed, Yes, that’s you, Harry. Mr. Symmetry.
You’re laughing in my face? Is that it?
There’s nothing here. This is all it is, a blank slate, Harry. You’ve come too far. You really have. Anything I could do for you is back in New York, not here, and not much there anymore either. Keeping a tight bead on lipsticks and powder. I could ask Tania to make up a nice parcel for the missus.
Tie my boots, Nick, with your fucking goody bags.
Look around.
I’m looking.
Then look harder.
The door opened after a muffled tap and Tania pushed in a wheeled cart. Coffee, sir, hot and strong.
That’s the ticket, Harry smiled. You always wear skirts like that to work, girlie?
Thanks, that’s all, Miss Cordell.
Cordell? Must be in the book. I’d like to see how the locals get on. Should I give a call?
Thanks, you can go. Close the door, please.
What, too rich for old Freeball. That’s what you’re saying, Nick? Your secretary? Come on.
Any mustard out there, doll? Harry leaned back, craned his head around to shout through the closed door.
Tania knocked and was back with a tray of pastries. For the coffee, she said.
Yes, sir, said Harry. Mighty thoughtful, that’s all I can say.
And you’ve said plenty. Close the door, thank you.
A Miss Cordell, is it? Just as it should be. What other treats and surprises, Nick? So many changes and not even a postcard to send the good word. And everyone wanting to know how you are. Lionel most of all.
Lionel knows how I am.
I wish it were so; I really do, said Harry, and gave a thoughtful sigh. This is all very nice though, he said. Almost like a consolation prize. Maybe you’ll think of it that way later on.
Nick watched Harry toy with the cigarette a bit more, licking the filter end with a white swollen tongue, then flicking ash into the pastry. Dangling it from his fingernails nearly scorching the surface of the desk then glancing up.
You’re a three-year-old, said Nick, sighing. Lionel, too. You’re like the fixer from Romper Room. Nick picked up the heavy white phone. Tania, put a call to my brother in New York on the calendar, please. No, this afternoon at five. We don’t want to wake him. Thanks. Happy now, Freeball?
I’m always happy. It’s a mental set, really. You can do it, too, he said, and brushed off some ash from the sugar topping then ate the pastry whole.
The minute Harry left the building, Nick told Tania to cancel the call.
Somehow Jean had plugged in the wrong electrical adapter. She didn’t know there was more than one kind, and now the whole apartment was teeming with electricians recommended by the Grosvenor Estates, summoned by the porter at the insistence of Mrs. Beryl Sutton on 5. She’d had her fill once and for all time of American ingenuity after the last war and she was livid.
It’s a catastrophe, she complained to Jean, all bumblers and thugs with fat wallets and wives like call girls. They were standing in the lobby, waiting for the lights to return to normal. The chandelier gave off a low ominous hiss Jean tried to ignore.
How is the little girl faring? Mrs. Sutton wanted to know.
Perfect, really, a lovely change, such an adventure, said Jean.
Oh good lord, what nonsense, never saw such a gang of miscreants and scoundrels as the board of that school, all Saudi money, you know.
No, I didn’t.
Oh yes, and the Jews? Mrs. Sutton lifted her chin with meaning.
The Jews? asked Jean.
Absolute powder keg. I don’t exaggerate.
No, of course not. But? Jean frowned.
But, my dear young lady, your daughter better know the way to the exit doors, that’s all I’m saying. No peacekeeping forces in St. John’s Wood, I daresay. No Dr. Kissingers pulling stunts outside the chemistry laboratory, Mrs. Sutton chuckled.
But they’re in Camden Town.
Just you wait. Cyril! What’s the prognosis?
It’s a fright, madam, sad to say, an unlucky plug, that’s all.
Unlucky? Unlucky? Hopeless morons. Please fetch me a taxi, Cyril, and let Felicia know I’ve given up on this day once and for all.
Of course. Right away.
No need to say right away, Cyril. I’m aware of your timetable. Mrs. Sutton withdrew a handkerchief from her skirt pocket, a large checkered square, faded from many launderings. Jean watched as she tapped the underside of her chin, tenderly as though wiping away the fallen tears of a child. It’s very disconcerting, she said.
It is, said Jean. And I’m very sorry.
You’re a good girl, said Mrs. Sutton. I can see that now.
No, I’m not, said Jean.
All a charade then?
Jean shook her head and smiled.
Just as I thought, she said and she was off.
Jean took a seat in one of the large claw-footed leather chairs at the far end of the lobby. There was a fireplace that bore a subtle scroll of ivy. Tiny red berries and a half dozen red velvet ribbons. This muted decoration struck Jean as just right. She felt a sudden wash of relief not to be going to Fifth Avenue this year after all, not to be tugging Lily through the crowds to Rockefeller Center. Maybe Nick had been right to keep them here. No angels with glitter falling off their trumpets, no Santas. This discreet holly could be turned into a houseplant with a deft removal of a couple of bows. She considered the rightness of this and
wondered how it happened. It’s the Jews! she thought and laughed, how ridiculous. She reached over and untied one small bow. And then after a while, she plucked apart another.
Haven’t you done enough harm for one day?
Where had Nick come from? What are you doing here, sweetheart?
The estate agent called the office. Highest, highest alert. Let’s finish the job, he laughed.
She looked at him, handsome in a blue suit she suddenly couldn’t recall. Did he change at the office? Come on, he said, gently, as if she’d been napping. Let me take you to lunch.
16
Lily’s mother told her it took time in a new place to make friends. But for her mother the friends came with the fixtures and fittings of the flat. Emma and Anna arrived at the first party and, as her mother said, never went home. They were always available—for lunch at the wine bar, trips to the Silver Vaults, or backgammon and pasta by the fire. Her mother scarcely had room to think she said. She confided she’d really given up on friendship. She’d discovered its profound limitations.
It’s very sad. But not for you of course, your life hasn’t even started yet!
I think it’s started, Lily said. It’s started for me. Her mother laughed but really she listened to the percussion of the sidewalk, waiting for her father now. She’d fallen in love with him all over again she said. Not that she’d ever stopped! Even in her pajamas she kept on her eyelashes.
But I don’t get it. What about Anna? And Emma? asked Lily.
Heartless, her mother laughed. One worse than the other. Emma Hocking had been saying something untrue about her father, some nonsense about a tart named Vivienne Vimcreste. Couldn’t tie her own shoelaces if she had to, mental health of a flea, but then she has other talents, said Emma. And her mother decided she’d heard enough. As for Anna, Jean was sick of people’s overweening sympathy.
But as far as Lily could tell no one was offering much of that anymore. Early in the autumn the phone calls from the States had converted to cards, quick notes to say a benefit committee was lost without Jean or that Sister Charitina was finally getting her new gymnasium, a miracle. Only Doris still called on Sunday afternoons, and those calls were short, and often over by the time Lily wandered down the hall to say hello. Lionel called occasionally. She’d come upon her mother hunched over the library desk once in the middle of the night. Get out, her mother whispered, covering the receiver. Then later she came to Lily’s bed and kissed her forehead and said that Lionel just needed some advice.
About what? Lily asked.
The usual, her mother said. She sat looking out through the bars to the green lit courtyard, waiting. Lily watched her mother’s face, her eyes, so bare and small-looking now. Her father was overnight in Paris again on business. I miss Poppa? Lily tried.
Oh! her mother said. Oh, honey, and she held her hand and rubbed along the top of her back like Lily was a little girl. And as she rubbed Lily felt her mother become calm and finally tire out.
Sweetie, Poppa always wanted me to tell you something.
Lily smiled at her mother. Poppa was full of ideas about everything but especially sports. He thought Lily should be a great and noble sportswoman. Didn’t matter what she took up as long as she was triumphant and if possible famous.
Is it about sports? Too late for the Olympics. Look at Peter Healey! He started training at four or something.
It’s not about sports; it’s about Daddy.
Well, maybe he was five.
Daddy helped Uncle Lionel with something a long time ago and things didn’t go well.
Lily watched her mother in the light from the well. Down below, the usual scurry among the trash bins always made her shiver, but her mother was the one trembling now. Lily touched her mother’s hand and she recoiled and said, This is bad timing. You don’t need to know this yet.
Daddy always helps Uncle Lionel.
This was a different kind of help and Daddy got in a lot of trouble with the government.
Because he hates Nixon?
No, no, her mother laughed. No. Something else. It started before you were born or just after. It lasted awhile.
The help?
Yes. For quite a while.
But not anymore?
No. It’s all over now. And Poppa just wanted you to know in case anyone ever brought it up. In case one of your friends’ parents ever mentioned something. So, now you know.
Lily felt her mother’s hip against her leg, felt the muscles stiffen and now she held both elbows as if making a neat container of herself. She blinked away from the window toward the dark hallway.
Okay, said Lily. Thanks.
Yes, okay. Don’t say anything to your father. He can be so touchy!
Not Daddy! Never!
Her mother laughed and her hip went soft and she leaned down to kiss Lily on the forehead. Good girl, she said and she smelled like Scotch and honey. All right, she whispered as if Lily had fallen asleep. All right, angel. And Lily felt in that moment her mother loved her; she just needed to keep it very quiet.
Just off Curzon Street, on the second floor above the nearest greengrocer—asparagus like dirty straw, ten bob for four wilted stalks? cried Mrs. Veal—a satanic coffee shop had opened, which for a brief while, to the dismay of proprietors, the American students made into a way station between Camden Town and Belgravia. Lawrence Weatherfield had discovered it, and until he was suspended from school and sent to Switzerland his social authority was nearly absolute.
One day, as she got off the tube at Oxford Street, Mirabel Kendrick turned around when they were up on the street, squinting in the sunlight and said to Lily, Oh, it’s you? Come along with us, right? And Lily, astonished, wandered down South Audley behind them. They were all dressed in black; even Lawrence Weatherfield had on faded black cords and a blackish crewneck sweater. Finally they climbed a crooked stair into a black-draped room with flickering hex sign candles and an espresso machine. Sour herbal incense burned in tiny alcoves where the images of demons leered.
There was the ordeal of stepping to the espresso counter to order cinnamon toast and then finding the only empty spot beside Mirabel in her hooded cape. Mirabel kept a thin nearly translucent hand tucked into the black leather trouser pocket of her boyfriend Elkin Barr. Her hand stroked in an undulating motion and she smiled at Lily, benevolently, like a saint on a Mass card. Her cape hood framed her sorrowful, tortured beauty. They’d been coming every day for weeks Lily discovered, and now Lawrence told what sounded like an ongoing story about his Indonesian nanny, Puni. This time Puni fed him Popsicles made of tainted water and his mother’s crushed-up Valium—just to keep him serene, ma’am, so baby can be peace—and his mother accepted this! Though she did hide the Valium, which was difficult because the jars came from Hong Kong and were massive like beer kegs. We had a pharmaceutical pantry, said Lawrence. Bigger than this room! Though he scarcely remembered that time. Now his mother was religious, or spiritual, and his father Lawrence said, raising his eyes to Mirabel’s exquisitely unresponsive face, was scarce. He watched her until something shifted and her eyes, rarely anything but benign and detached, skittered to Elkin, who opened his and said, Well, if Mummy’s ever stuck you know where to send her, mate. And Mirabel snuggled her hand deeper and slowly removed her gaze from Lawrence’s.
Lily said, What kind of religion? Lawrence turned and grinned. Take your pick, love.
Love, mate, it all came from the Working Men’s College, but Lily heard only the endearment, the possible interpretation of you are this to me.
Elkin made a joke about Lawrence and his mother camping out at the Dorchester. So bloody convenient. Lily was stunned and wanted to ask if it was really true, but then Mirabel said something about a pinch in her calf and Elkin and Lawrence studied her as she bent to rub from knee to ankle along the torn black fishnets and went silent beneath the static of the ambient guitar. This meant Lawrence and Lily were neighbors now and she hadn’t even realized.
Then the very n
ext day the satanic café was closed for good for unknown reasons and she was the only person getting off at Oxford Circus again. So she began walking up Park Lane every once in a while. She’d walk slowly past the Dorchester, set back in its own triangle of sidewalk and driveway, an attribute so special it seemed to reflect on Lawrence. Lily would slow way down and feel her whole body alerted to the possibility that Lawrence might suddenly appear through the revolving door and see her. Lily, Lily! he’d shout and she would spin around. Lawrence? Then he would come up to her. Wait! he’d be saying as he walked to her with his slow slouch, but a tiny bit rushed. Hey, can you wait? His religious mother might be left standing near the doorman, calling out, impatient, but Lawrence would keep coming to Lily, his face open with delight. I was hoping I’d bump into you. Love.
Then Lily would be all the way past the Dorchester and the Park Lane traffic sound would rise pounding, deafening, and she’d be exhausted, so exhausted she felt she could almost lie down on the sidewalk and sleep right there, but the men on the street stared, stared at her body in a frightening way until she’d reach the Hilton and the underground walkway and go down into the echoing tiles, past the buskers, who she felt sorry for and would give all the notes in her pocket, every time, then up into Hyde Park to find Achilles. By end of November Lily was walking along Park Lane every darkening afternoon.
As the weather got damper, the statue of Achilles became slick with icy drizzle most days. The pedestal wasn’t hard to climb, even in her maxicoat. Others sprawled there to enjoy the vista of the park, the sliver of Serpentine spread visible beneath the fading trees, the dirt scent of grass mixed with the high sweet tinge of hashish. The joints were passed to everyone and she learned to hold in the smoke without snorting.
Lily would lean back and find a strange comfort here among the traveling international students with their guitar cases and backpacks. She could almost see her room with the bars and the shag carpeting from here, see her mother come in through the glass and iron front door with new shopping bags, see her drop everything in a lump on the front étagère and rush into the library because the phone was ringing and the police who’d found Lily were just calling to say she mustn’t be frightened because Lily might still be okay, they were holding out hope, but she must come immediately. And her mother would faint and the policeman—the bobby—would be saying, Madam? Madam? Can you hear me? Mrs. Veal would rush in, pluck up the receiver and shout, And why would you disturb the poor woman with nonsense, shame on you, then slam down the phone. Missus? she’d say very gently. Now Missus? I’ll get you something soothing. And Mrs. Veal would help her mother very slowly make her way to the rust-colored sofa, and tuck a quilt, maybe something satin from the guest room around her shivering legs. Oh, I’ll give that girl a piece of my mind when she dares to show her face. You just wait. Lily’s mother would protest, but softly, She’s only a child, Mrs. Veal.
The Loved Ones Page 14